


Sentinel

by Moon_Disc



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post-Episode: s01e10 Breakdown, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21623779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moon_Disc/pseuds/Moon_Disc
Summary: A strange object appears on theLiberatorand abducts several members of the crew. But what does it want with them? And are they prepared to do whatever it takes to escape its clutches?
Relationships: Kerr Avon & Jenna Stannis, Roj Blake & Cally
Comments: 90
Kudos: 64





	1. Sphere of Influence

Vila yawned and stretched out on the couch. 

The _Liberator’s_ night phase was usually quiet, too quiet sometimes for his liking. With the lights dimmed, the dark spaces beyond the flight deck seemed to stretch out to touch the void beyond the ship. In return, the cold seeped in, bringing with it the silence that surrounded the stars. Vastness, infinite beyond imagining, containing every horror an overactive mind could produce. As if the Federation wasn’t bad enough, Vila reflected, there were aliens out there too. Growing up in a hostile world had been hard; now his horizons had broadened, he was faced with a hostile universe as well.

He had decided a long time ago it was better not to think about it. Better to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground, as much as you could when you were fixed in geostationary orbit thousands of miles above a planet. 

Not that it was much to look at, Vila thought as he regarded the cloud-shrouded planet on the main screen. Jocasta, Zen had called it, a dead world, strangled by thick vapour, spewed from a chain of active volcanoes. That was the theory; probes had never been able to penetrate the upper atmosphere and the few survey ships that had dipped below the cloud had never returned. Only the black tips of mountain tops thrust through the billowing grey blanket hinted at what lay beneath.

Vila yawned again and told Zen he had seen enough. The only thing Jocasta had to recommend it was that it had nothing to interest the Federation. It had offered a safe harbour for the _Liberator_ to recharge the energy banks after a flotilla of pursuit ships had kept up a dogged chase that had seen their reserves dip to critical levels.

Safe then, but boring. Nothing wrong with that, Vila thought. Too much of the excitement that Blake favoured was trying on the nerves. Tiring too. Even now, a heavy weight was dragging on his eyelids. Down they drifted until his head snapped back and woke him up. The pull of sleep was irresistible and he started to nod again. How long his eyes had been closed when Zen’s voice cut through his dreams he could not tell. Not long enough, he thought and grudgingly acknowledged the intrusion.

“What is it, Zen?” he grumbled, unwilling to open his eyes.

“A signal from the planet Jocasta has been intercepted.”

“Where's it going?”

“The _Liberator_ is the point of contact.”

“What?!” 

Vila’s eyes flew open. What he saw made him press back in his seat in sheer terror. Before him spun a large sphere, five feet in diameter. Its grey-white interior swirled and spiralled, as though the cloud from the planet had been trapped within. Whatever it was, Vila had the strong impression it was studying him intently. Why? Was it eyeing up its next meal?

Tentatively, he reached out a hand to the intercom. The sphere made no attempt to stop him. Never taking his eyes from it, his fingers fumbled with the button until he found the right one. Blake’s weary voice responded.

“There’s something here on the flight deck you have to see,” Vila stammered. “Something big. I think it wants to eat me. I need help!”

His wandering fingers found a larger button. A loud repeating tone boomed through the ship. The sphere did not react. It hung before him, observing, analysing, waiting.

Vila was waiting too, and he was sure he had aged twenty years by the time he heard footsteps hammering in his direction. Both heavy and light, a full complement he reckoned, summoned by the general alert. Too scared to turn away, he remained pinioned to his seat and watched as the others slowly came into his field of view.

“You took your time,” he said with difficulty.

“What is it?” asked Gan. “Where did it come from?”

“Two guesses,” said Avon. “If you need them.”

“Jocasta,” Blake said. “How did it get here, Vila?”

He shrugged helplessly, dislodging a bead of sweat that coursed down his temple. “I closed my eyes for a second, I swear, and when I opened them, there it was.”

“Move away from it.”

“I can’t. It won’t let me.”

“Have you tried?” Blake said impatiently.

Vila slid cautiously to one side and inched his way past the sphere. Finally free, he scuttled to safety behind Gan.

“Well, that answers one question,” said Blake, rubbing at his jaw thoughtfully. “Is it a communication device?”

“From a dead planet?” said Avon.

“We assumed it was dead, that’s not the same thing.” 

He approached it, putting his hand out to it. Inches from its surface, Jenna’s voice made him pause.

“Careful, Blake,” she said. “We don’t know what it might be capable of.”

“It means us no harm,” said Cally, her expression earnest. “I believe its intentions are benevolent.”

“Benevolent?!” said Vila. “You didn’t see it, Cally. It had me pinned there!”

“It appears to have lost interest in you since then,” said Blake, withdrawing his hand.

“If it ever had any,” said Avon. “Zen, identify the object on the flight deck.”

The lights moved in a regimented sequence across the bronzed surface. “There is no object on the flight deck.”

“Conclusion is incorrect. Analyse the sphere.”

“Further information is not available.”

“So Zen can’t see it,” said Blake. “Is it a projection, perhaps?”

“For what purpose?” said Jenna.

“If we knew that―”

He stopped suddenly, realising that the sphere had begun to change. The clouds within were parting to reveal a light as bright as a miniature sun. Rays broke through the vapour and flooded the flight deck in blinding brilliance. Vila put his hands over his eyes and still the light crept between his fingers and made his eyelids glow a translucent red, marking out the blood vessels like pathways on a grisly map. The pain was building to unbearable levels, leaving tears coursing down his face, when as quickly as it had started, the light died away.

Irregular shapes seared by the light on his retinas danced before his vision and it took a while before they had faded enough for him to focus. When he did, it was to find Gan bent double to his left, groaning and rubbing his watery eyes. Better yet, to Vila’s relief, the sphere had gone. But so had Blake, Cally, Avon and Jenna.


	2. Strangers in Paradise

Intense light gave way to a single brilliant point set in a sky the colour of cornflowers. A warming breeze caressed his face and thawed him from the inside out. Tall grasses brushed their heads against his knees and dainty seed pods pirouetted in the lambent air. The heady fragrance of a thousand flowers that painted the forest clearing in gaudy colours assaulted his senses, almost to the point of suffocation. Blake took a deep breath to clear his head and took stock of his surroundings.

The _Liberator_ was gone and with it Vila and Gan. Coniferous trees rose up around him, shrouding the landscape beyond from his sight, save for the distant mountains with their oddly-truncated peaks. Bird song filled the forest and a faint booming spoke of larger animals contesting territory. 

A paradise, Blake thought, compared to some of the planets they had visited. Pure unfiltered air, natural daylight and the sounds of a mountain stream cascading through the heart of a forest. Everything anyone could wish for – but then why was he on his guard?

He saw the same measures of bewilderment and concern reflected on the faces of Jenna and Avon. Cally, however, was smiling, almost beatifically, revelling in the beauty around her.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” She reached down to pluck a delicate red flower. “That such a place could exist.”

“And no one knows about it,” Avon returned, his tone suggesting he did not share her enthusiasm. “Odd, don’t you think?”

“I’m assuming this is Jocasta,” said Blake. “Except for one thing.”

“The cloud cover,” said Jenna, nodding as she glanced towards the clear sky. “We must be inside a biodome.”

“Vast enough to cover a whole planet?” said Cally, taking in the vast sweep of the heavens above her and the encroaching forest all around. “Such things are impossible.”

“Well, it’s a rare sun that appears beneath the clouds,” said Blake with a smile. “The question is, what does a society with technology as advanced as this want with us?”

“The _Liberator_?” Jenna suggested.

Blake shook his head. “They have teleport capability. How else did we get here?”

“Their intentions are _good_ , I’m sure of it,” said Cally with emphasis. “The feeling I got from the sphere was that it wanted us to be happy.”

“Their definition of happiness might not be ours,” said Jenna. “Anyway, why just us four? What about Gan and Vila?”

“I think our host is about to explain,” said Blake, nodding to the far side of the clearing. The sphere had reappeared and was making its way in their direction. It stopped just short of where they stood, hovering several feet above the ground, the swirling smoke of its interior presenting an ever-changing kaleidoscope of patterns.

“Welcome Roj Blake, Kerr Avon, Jenna Stannis, Cally,” it announced. The voice was that of an older man, carrying authority. “I am Sentinel, the guardian of Jocasta. My function is to serve and protect my people.”

“We meant no offence,” said Blake. “If we intruded in some way, then it was unintentional.”

“You are most welcome here,” Sentinel continued. The casual dismissal of his response gave Blake the impression it was reading from a pre-rehearsed script, as if it had done this many times before. “Here you will thrive and multiply. You will be an asset to my people.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Clarify, please.”

“I was created ten thousand years ago to serve the people of Jocasta,” Sentinel intoned. “I have been their protector for all that time. I have borne witness to many generations. Now my people are dying. I must protect them.”

“If it’s medical help you require,” Cally said, “we may be able to help. What is the nature of their problem?”

“Depletion of the gene pool has been killing my people for many centuries. Without greater genetic diversity, my people face extinction. Without my people, I cannot serve. Without my people, I cannot protect. Without my people, I shall cease to exist. I cannot permit this to happen.”

Blake caught Avon’s eye and saw his same troubling thoughts reflected there. A dying planet, a rogue computer with awareness to foresee its own imminent death and a solution involving abduction and imprisonment. The Federation adopted much the same strategy on frontier worlds, where volunteers were few and the need for labour high. It was a pattern he had seen far too often to deceive himself that his expectations were about disappointed.

“From your ship,” Sentinel said, “I have selected two males and two females―”

“Now wait a minute,” Blake spoke up.

“The selection has been based on intelligence and compatibility. It is wished that your stay on Jocasta is a happy one.”

“You would make us happy by returning us to our ship. This is unacceptable, Sentinel. I _demand_ to speak to your leaders.”

“ _I_ speak for my people.” The grey cloud within began to agitate violently. “There is but one voice and it is mine. I protect my people and so my will is theirs.”

“We are not your people!” said Avon. “You do not speak for us!”

He started forward, only for Blake to put his arm out and stop him. Avon pushed him away with a strength Blake had not credited him, all restraint thrown recklessly to the wind. 

“Are you going to stand there and let this happen?”

“We don’t have much choice!” Blake returned.

“So we do nothing. It always has to be your way, Blake, doesn’t it, right or wrong, and to hell with everyone else!”

“This is not my doing!”

Bad enough that Avon was already apportioning the blame, thought Blake, but he had not expected him to unravel quite so quickly. What was it, he wondered? The prospect of what lay ahead? To have escaped Cygnus Alpha only to exchange one prison for another was as bitter as gall. Freedom had been dangled before him like a rare jewel and snatched away. Someone had to be responsible for this. There had to be _someone_ to argue against, not just this faceless object dispensing cold logic to rectify a problem of its own making.

The injustice and frustration burned, as though someone had ignited a seed of fire in his brain. The urge to let it loose on Avon and turn him to ash for his insolence was overwhelming. Every violation, past and present, was adding fuel to it, clamping the muscles in his jaw and contracting his fingers into fists. Primal instinct was taking over, demanding release in the form of unwanted violence. All-consuming, wraith-like, swallowing up his reason and threatening to destroy every hard-fought bond.

And there was Avon, willing him to do it, his own rage lighting his eyes with flame, ready to ignite anything that came within his range. Recognising it came as the shock Blake needed. He took a step back, letting the glowing embers die. Almost simultaneously, he saw Avon shake away his own anger and control was gradually restored with each calming breath he took.

“What was that?” asked Jenna with concern. “You looked like you were about to tear each other’s throats out.”

“I don’t know,” said Blake soberly. “This feeling came over me and... I’m sorry, Avon.”

He expected and received no reply. Avon was too busy trying to make sense of his own reaction to worry about Blake.

“It’s Sentinel,” said Cally absently. Her eyes had taken on a distant, unfocused look and she was rubbing distractedly at her temple. “It was testing you.”

“For what purpose?”

“Your species is known to be warlike and rebellious,” the sphere declared. “You will not be permitted to destroy the harmony I have created for my people. For their protection and for the survival of this planet, the males must be segregated. No contact will be allowed for the span of one generation.”

“No, you aren’t splitting us up,” Blake protested.

“You have demonstrated that you cannot be trusted to restrain your natural instincts. There can be no other alternative.”

“If we’re so unsuitable, why do you want us?” Jenna called out.

“My people share a common ancestor with yours. We have had some success with your species in the past once their unruly natures were contained. Now, you will proceed to the settlements selected for you. My people are expecting you. You will be our honoured guests. You will be happy and you will multiply and my people will survive.”

“Sentinel, wait,” Blake appealed. “What right do you have to keep us here against our will?”

Too late, the sphere was enveloped in a ball of light that shrank to a tiny sparkling dot. The breeze carried it away high into the tree canopy until finally it was lost from sight. Blake swore under his breath.

“Because that will make all the difference,” said Avon.

Blake turned on him. What remained of his self-control was again being whipped up into a frenzy. “Have you got any suggestions?”

“No.” His reply was considered. “On the face of it, our options are limited.”

“We must do as Sentinel says,” said Cally. 

“You’re going along with it?” said Jenna.

Cally gave a helpless shrug. “What else can we do? We have no weapons, no communicators. We are at Sentinel’s mercy. It can manipulate us at will. To defy it would be unwise.”

“Whatever happened to its ‘good intentions’?”

“It means us no harm.”

“Treating us like breeding stock falls short of my definition of ‘harm’,” said Avon.

“Agreed,” said Blake. “Right, I say we stay together and work out a way to get out of here. Come on, let’s find shelter.”

As he started away, it was Jenna’s small cry of alarm that made him look back. She was not following but standing still in the middle of the clearing, hands raised as though resting them against an invisible wall.

“I can’t,” she said with difficulty. “Blake, we can’t.”

Standing at her side, Avon reached out to the empty air. Silver ripples appeared around the tips of his fingers before he drew them away. Ever wider the circles spun out from their epicentres, travelling high above their heads and out in every direction into the far distance.

“A force wall,” Avon confirmed. “With us on this side, and you and Cally on the other.”

“No, no, it isn’t possible.” There was an edge to Jenna’s voice that she was struggling to suppress. “This is wrong. This can’t be happening.”

Blake hurriedly retraced his steps and tested the barrier. The urge to grab Jenna and pull her through was overwhelming. The light tingles electrifying his fingertips progressed to a scolding inferno that ran down his tendons into his shoulder and neck and down his back until the searing pain made him fall back. Cally stooped to help him up, but he shook her away.

“I’m all right,” he muttered. He glanced up at her and regretted his sharp words. Not her fault, he told himself. “I suppose this is meant to be Sentinel’s idea of segregation.”

“It appears to be effective,” said Avon. He touched the barrier and watched the ripples run away into the distance. “I would suggest walking around it, but I’m sure Sentinel has thought of that.”

“Suggest something else,” said Jenna. “I’m not staying here.”

“I’m afraid you are. We all are.”

“Not with you.”

Avon gave a soft snort. “Our host has other ideas.”

She looked back to Blake, her features stricken. “What are we going to do?”

The reassurance she needed he had very little to give. “We’ll stay here,” he said. “Sentinel can’t make us leave.”

No sooner had he said it than the barrier shimmered and became tangible. A shaft of light sheared it down the middle, splitting it in two. The two halves began to move away from each other, forcing retreat.

“If you have any other ‘good’ ideas, Blake,” said Avon, scowling as he was forced back, “keep them to yourself.”

“I do.” It was a faint, almost impossible hope, but it was all he had. “The survey ships the Federation lost here – how did they get through the barrier?”

“Sentinel allowed them through?”

“Without compromising the biodome?”

Even at a distance, he saw from Avon’s expression that he was beginning to understand. The trees were coming up fast behind him and time was running out.

“The mountain tops,” Blake hollered. “They were above the clouds. Get to the mountains.”

His back collided with a trunk. Still the barrier moved towards him. He could only watch helplessly as his friends were driven back into the forest. At the last possible moment, Jenna called out to him.

“Don’t forget us.”

“Never. We’ll find you.”

He kept watching as they disappeared into the smothering folds of the forest. His stomach knotted as the thought took hold that he might never see them again.

“Yes, I’ll find you,” he whispered vehemently. “Count on it.”


	3. Out of the Woods

The branch whipped back and slapped her in the face. Knocked slightly off balance, Jenna swore under her breath, pushed it aside and continued on. If she did not know better, she would have said Avon had done it on purpose, except that he seemed to have forgotten she was there. Intent on setting a blistering pace, he was pressing on regardless, leaving her in his wake.

She had let him go on ahead, recognising his need for space to work off whatever was gnawing away at his insides. She had seen him angry before, but this was different. This was raw, manifesting itself in the punishment he was doling out to the unfortunate foliage.

If she was honest, she did not want to see it. The Avon who had been so uptight it had been taken him weeks aboard the _Liberator_ before he considered undoing the studs on his collar was the one she wanted now. With his insults, arrogance and contempt, he was quantifiable. This incarnation, undefined and restless, was making her uneasy.

“Avon,” she called to him. Trying to keep up with him was tiring. She was hot, thirsty and in need of a rest. “Stop.”

It took another call before he acknowledged her. He stood with his back to her, breathing heavily. She approached warily.

“Is there any reason we’re ploughing through the undergrowth when there was a perfectly good path back there?”

“People use paths. We should avoid them.” Sweating profusely, he rubbed a dirt-stained hand across his brow, leaving a brown smear at his temple. “Keep moving. We should find shelter before dark.”

“Wait.” She stopped herself from catching his arm. The gesture would not be appreciated. “Are we all right?”

“In what sense?”

There was a challenge in his voice. Better to tackle it head on. 

“You’re not yourself.”

“It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

“Avon.” It was enough to make him pause. “If it’s going to be a problem, I need to know.”

“It’s not.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“What do you want me to say?” This time when he turned, an intensity was burning in his midnight eyes. “The truth? Very well. I find myself plagued by thoughts of you.”

Jenna cleared her throat. That had been unexpected. Not his preoccupation; similar thoughts had been whirling through her own mind. Following him, she had found herself fascinated by the way the sweat had parted his hair into tiny clusters at the nape of his neck, setting small dark curls in contrast against the pale skin. Just the thought of it made a flush of warmth flow through her. 

No, it had been unexpected because Avon had been prepared to admit it. She questioned why. Either to dispel it or pursue it. Well, she _had_ asked. An awkward situation had suddenly become ten times worse. The blush that seared through her cheeks made her think her face was on fire. She looked away and hoped he would not notice.

“That might not be exclusive to you, Avon,” she said.

His scowl deepened. “Control it.”

“By following your example?” She bristled at the implication. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you and Blake hadn’t lost it with each other. And you’re telling _me_ to control myself?”

Avon remained impassive. “We are subject to a malign influence, Jenna. Recognise it and resist it. As Cally said, we are being tested.”

“For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. With the power Sentinel has, it did not need an excuse to split us up.”

“It could be the opposite,” she said thoughtfully. “Rather than our weaknesses, it could have been testing our strengths. It might have been better if you had come to blows.”

“Possibly. Understanding it means it won’t happen again.”

“You mean we won’t be grabbing at each other’s throats?”

The faintest smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Quite the opposite. Sentinel’s path to happiness, no doubt.” 

He glanced around. The curls shook and licked at his ear. Jenna bit her lip. 

“I suspect there is something in the air producing this effect,” he said. “This is an artificial environment. Everything should be viewed with suspicion.”

“Well, we’re going to need food and water at some point.”

“ _Everything_. We should proceed with care.”

“Who said anything about proceeding?”

What was meant as an attempt to lighten the atmosphere was misinterpreted. 

“Sorry to disappoint you.” He took several steps towards her, stopping closer than was necessary or comfortable. Jenna held her ground. “You should know that I am _not_ negotiable. Nor am I second best.”

It had all the subtly and effect of a slap around the face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You made your preference known a long time ago, Jenna. Now live with it.”

She stared at him, refusing to back down. “You don’t have to try so hard, you know.” She saw the question in his eyes. “If you want me to hate you, Avon, you’re wasting your time. I already do.”

“Keep it that way. We might live longer.”

“I don’t know what Cally sees in you.” She pushed him out of the way. “I’ll lead.”

“Be my guest.”

She was aware of his eyes on her back as she snapped off a dangling length of branch from a nearby tree. Using it to smash the tangled undergrowth away from their path was strangely satisfying; more so when one particularly dense bush she had pushed aside reasserted its former position and landed a hefty blow on Avon following behind. 

That would teach him to walk so close, she thought. He was doing it on purpose, of course, to emphasis the point that she was not going fast enough for his liking. Even the sound of his footfall was calculated to annoy. She upped the pace, taking out her frustrations on the clumped growth, imagining each one to be his smug face. One particular verdant shrub toppled under her assault and suddenly she found herself face to face with the familiar black uniform of a Federation trooper suspended from the lower branch of tree.

The shock made her freeze in her tracks until she realised that he was long past being a threat. She flinched when she felt Avon’s hand come to rest on her shoulder as he stepped past her to inspect the loose collection of bones and fabric.

“How long do you think he’s been here?” Jenna asked.

At the slightest touch, the helmet rolled from its precarious position and came to rest with the base uppermost, revealing the bleached skull within.

“Long enough,” said Avon. “Probably from one of those survey ships that went missing.”

A shiver ran down her spine. “Did Sentinel do this to him? Or the people?”

“Not if he still had this.”

He reached into the thick growth at the base of the tree and retrieved a moss-covered blaster. The power was long drained and he threw it aside.

“More likely they crashed. The ship should be around here somewhere.”

Jenna did not have far to look. The forest had done a good job of claiming the downed ship. Ivy had climbed across the hull and tangled in the main drives. A thick layer of composting leaves and debris half burying its wings told of the passing of many seasons since it had come to rest on Jocasta. One of the rear doors had buckled in the crash, allowing an opening wide enough for Jenna to slip inside. 

A quick glance around revealed the usual jumble of broken crates and instruments, as well as few old skeletons. Something rustled in one of the tattered uniforms and a spiky-furred rodent made a dash for it, squealing in alarm as it leapt across her boot in its hasty retreat. She took a step back, straight into Avon. A moment’s contact was enough to leave her peculiarly conscious of the warmth of his body and the sensation of his hands lingering near her elbows before she extracted herself and put distance between them.

He looked mildly amusement by her reaction. “When you’ve finished jumping at shadows, Jenna, see what you can find. There might be something we can salvage.”

“Where are you going?” she called as he turned away.

“If we are spending the night here, we need wood for a fire.”

The thought flashed across her mind that he was planning on abandoning her. “In this heat?”

“It might get cold when the sun goes down. I do not want to be stumbling around this forest in the dark.”

She watched as he squeezed through the opening, snagging the sleeve of his grey shirt in the process. The material tore back to reveal his forearm, the first time, she realised, she had been allowed a glimpse of what lay beneath his preferred long sleeves. He caught her looking and she directed her gaze away.

“Avon,” she said. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have a choice. We need to stay together, Jenna. In these situations, a surplus of women is preferable to a surplus of men. Any use they would have for me on my own would be... temporary.”

A soft laugh escaped her. “And that doesn’t appeal?”

“Not much.”

“Presumably that’s also why Sentinel didn’t want Gan or Vila.”

“Vila would be surplus to requirements whatever the occasion. Stay here. I won’t be long.”

“Avon,” Jenna called out to him again. “Be careful.”

He nodded and with that, he was gone.


	4. The World Forgetting

Cally was talking.

She had been talking for a good ten minutes. All very important, Blake was sure, but trying to concentrate on what she was saying, let alone make sense of it, was beyond him. She could have been speaking another language for all he understood. Random words, loosely strung together, meaningless when taken as a whole. 

Only with the sudden absence of her voice did he realise she must have asked him a question.

“I’m sorry, Cally,” he said. “What was that?”

She was slightly behind him, tramping with difficulty through the tall grass that lined the edge of the forest.

“Avon and Jenna,” she repeated, a little breathlessly. “You’re worried about them, aren’t you?”

He slowed his pace to allow her to catch up. “Yes, I am.”

“They are all right, Blake, I’m sure of it.”

“You don’t know that, Cally.”

She gave him a pointed look. “I am able to sense them.”

Blake shook his head. “Yes, I’m sorry.” Apologising again. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “Were you able to make contact with the _Liberator_?”

“It was difficult, but believe I was able to make Gan understand. It is a long distance for a telepathic link.”

“As long as they stay within range, that’s all we need.”

He came to a halt as the ground ran out and gave way to a steep escarpment. A wide plain stretched out before him, dappled with nodding white flowers as far as the eye could see. They had been walking for nearly three hours and the mountains were as distant as ever. How long would it take to reach them, he wondered. Days, weeks? And even if it proved possible to ascend the heights, what would they find at the top? Freedom or another barrier? What then?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Cally’s voice startled him from his darker thoughts. He glanced across to where she stood a little to his left, shielding her eyes against the glare of the orange sky. The setting sun brought out the red in her hair and highlighted her cheekbones. In the golden light, she had a gentle, understated beauty, accentuated because she was so disarmingly unaware of her prettiness. 

With effort, Blake tore his gaze away and tried to marshal his thoughts away from the physical.

“Many would call this a paradise,” she mused.

“Not me.” Blake released a long breath. “There’s a saying on Earth, Cally. ‘A cage with gilded bars―’”

“’Is still a cage’,” she finished for him. “Yes, I know it. We have a similar expression on Auron.” The evening breeze toyed with her hair, lifting it from her cheeks. “But what if they don’t realise it, the people who live here? What if they choose not to leave?”

In some ways, he envied her ability to see the world in such simple terms. For him, those illusions had been shattered a long time ago.

“What if they aren’t given the choice?” Blake returned. 

“Perhaps they no longer care. Perhaps they are happy.”

“Happy? As prisoners of Sentinel?”

She did not react. “Some birds do not fly away even when the cage door is open.”

“Because they know no different.”

“What of you?” She turned towards him, the dying sun flecking her eyes with amber flames. She was a glowing vision, the green satin of her clothes turned to gold. “If you had never been told what the Federation had done to you, what would your life be like now, Blake? Would you have been happier not knowing?”

“I would have been ignorant. That’s not the same thing.”

Cally considered. “There is another old Earth expression I have learned: ignorance is bliss. There is something in that, I think. It is the past that dictates our future.”

There had been an inflection in her voice that made Blake glance over at her. 

“We are still talking about me?”

She was silent for a long moment, staring out into the distance, squinting against the light. “I cannot remember Auron. I have a general impression of a place I once knew, but the details are no longer there. Why I left, this is lost to me.”

Blake took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. “Cally, what’s happened?”

The unfocused look in her eyes confirmed a nagging suspicion. There was something about this place that spoke to a deep longing within him and offered a promise of a better life. Once it took root, it was insidious and all-consuming. He had felt it, in the sudden awareness he had of the beauty of this place, in the way he caught himself looking at Cally with a new appreciation, and the feeling of distance from the horrors beyond this world and the demons of his memory.

If he was affected, then he could only imagine what effect it was having on Cally with her telepathic abilities.

A smile slowly took shape on her lips and softened her features. “Would it be so wrong,” she said, reaching up to brush the line of his jaw, “to stay here?”

He caught her hand and squeezed it just hard enough to bring her out of her stupor. “Yes, it would. Sentinel is doing this. It wants us to feel this way. It wants us to abandon our friends and forget the _Liberator_.”

“The _Liberator_ , yes, I remember.” She frowned a little and withdrew her hand to rub her temple as a spreading pink flush touched her cheeks. “I don’t know why I did that. Thank you for understanding.”

“If that’s the worst I ever get, I could die a happy man.” Blake smiled and eased her embarrassment. “We need to watch each out for other, Cally. There’s no saying what Sentinel has planned for us.”

“Erasure of our past.” She said it without thinking. “That is the impression I get.”

“Memories define us,” said Blake firmly. He could feel his anger building. The sense of being trapped and the denial of his free will clawed at his insides. “I’ve had my memories taken once before. It isn’t happening again. Without them, what are we? Walking, talking automatons, devoid of purpose!”

“All the same,” said Cally, “there are some things I wish I could forget. Travis, for example.”

“Who?”

She stared at him. “Travis.”

Blake shook his head. Cally’s eyes showed the kind of gentle concern a parent has for a distressed child. He resented it and, when she laid her hand lightly on his shoulder as a soothing gesture, he flinched and pulled away.

“It’s happening to you too,” she said. “You’re starting to forget.”

“No,” he insisted. “No, it’s impossible. I remember... I _won’t_ forget.”

“Blake, I'm sorry to have to tell you this.” Her voice was soft and calming, more so than the actual words. “Travis... killed your friends.”

* * * * * * *

It was over thirty minutes before Avon returned. The hurried squelch of approaching footsteps on wet leaves heralded his approach. Jenna was up on her feet in anticipation before he came into sight. The anxiety that had tormented her with thoughts of his capture evaporated. Irrational, she had told herself. If ever there was a born survivor, it was Avon. And right on cue, he reappeared.

“You took your time,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “What kept you?”

He did not stop to answer her. Hauling off his tunic, he threw it aside, a limp sodden mass. Only when he stepped from the gloom did she become aware of the droplets of water running down his face and his grey shirt turned black with water. His hair had become one with his face, wetly draped over the defined bone structure. It had started raining ten minutes after he had left; he had returned drenched from head to foot. 

“I need something dry to wear,” he muttered.

She averted her gaze as he pushed past tearing open the studs of his shirt. He vanished into the forward cabin. A moment later, his discarded shirt was thrown out.

There had been an assumption in that statement that made her hackles rise. She was about to tell him what he could do with his wet clothes when a pair of damp trousers came flying through the open door. The thought that their owner might soon follow made her change her mind. 

In amongst the crates had been several spare dark blue work overalls. Selecting one that was the least stained by mould, she returned to the doorway and stood with her back to it, holding the overall out. It was snatched from her hand.

“What happened?” she asked over her shoulder.

The odd rustle and thump spoke of his tussle with the garment. “I was caught in the rain.”

She was aware her eyebrows had risen, a wasted effort really, considering he could not see her. She put her feelings into her voice instead. “Is that all?”

“It’s enough.” 

The closeness of his voice made her jump. She half turned to find him drying his hair on what appeared to be one of the pilot’s uniforms. Dappled with brown stains of every shade, it was in shreds. Jenna tried not to think of what had happened to its last owner.

Avon caught her looking. “It wouldn’t have been my first choice.”

Nor, she guess, was the overall. Two sizes too small, he had barely managed to get it done up. As he stooped to retrieve his trousers, the zip lost its tenuous grip and started to slip down his chest inch by inch. Jenna reached down to help him. 

“Don’t touch,” he said sharply. 

Leaving him to struggle alone, she put distance between them. He was too close and too distracting for her own good. For his own good too, probably. 

“You were meant to be getting wood,” she said.

“It got wet.”

“You were gone for a long time.” She faced him with folded arms. “I thought you’d been captured.”

“There are no patrols as far as I can tell. Non-compliance isn’t a problem here.”

He threw the uniform away and smoothed down his ruffled hair. It shone in what was left of the fading light, matching eyes the colour of the earth after torrential rain. Like the rains that had soaked him to the skin and returned him to her fragranced with the scent of the forest and damp earth. Jenna pinched herself and cursed again the irritating influence of this wretched planet that had her thoughts in a whirl.

“No one in their right mind would go along with this,” she said.

“'Right mind’ being the operative phrase.” Avon gathered up the rest of his clothes, the overalls straining at the seams as he did so. With his shirt, he took more care than was necessary, taking time to smooth away the creases, as if his thoughts were far from what he was doing. “Jenna,” he said at length, “the letters ‘A’ and ‘N’: do they mean anything to you?”

She considered for a moment. “Nothing in particular. What are they? Initials?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded confused. “Specifically, do they mean anything to _me_?”

“I wouldn’t know. You don’t share anything with the rest of us, Avon.”

She waited, but the blow did not fall. There was no repose, no biting remark. He remained where he was, present with her and yet a million miles away. That old worry resurfaced, urging her to ask. First rage, then desire, now this. Whatever this place was, whatever it was doing to him, it was running him through the whole gamut of emotions and stripping them from him one by one. 

“Why is it important?” she asked.

He gave her a dull look, finally acknowledging her presence. “Because of this.”

He pulled back his sleeve to reveal his forearm. Jenna caught her breath. Scratched into the pale flesh were livid red lines, jagged with smears of blood, forming two irregular letters: A and N.

“Who did this to you?” she asked, appalled.

“I did it.” His expression was quizzical. “And I can’t remember why.”


	5. What Divides Us

“Could it have been a message?”

Jenna was busy emptying out the contents of a crate onto the floor. So far, all she had found were corroded power packs, mouldering heaps of unrecognisable items and nothing that was of any practical use. She pushed the debris out of the way and dragged another box over. 

“A way of getting out of here?” she said, whilst she sorted. “Could you have been writing ‘an exit’?”

Even in the gloom, she could tell Avon was scowling. “Do you imagine I would waste time disfiguring myself with an indefinite article?”

She caught herself sighing. Typical Avon, she thought with annoyance, throwing her offers of assistance back in her face. Even playing to an audience of one, the barbs were as keen as ever.

“What’s your suggestion?”

“It must have been something important, something I needed to remember. A name, a place. As I said, I don’t know.”

“Then it has to be a name,” Jenna said. “There’s no place I’d want to remember so badly that I’d write it on my arm. People though – there’s a few I’d hate to forget.”

She found what she was looking for and stood up. A dermal healer, standard emergency equipment for any Federation vessel. This one appeared to be in good order, but when she tried it, the power was dead. She threw it away in disgust only to find Avon watching her with interest.

“I was hoping they had a basic medical kit,” she said in answer to his look. “When I had my own ship, I never placed all my trust in technology. I kept back-up supplies: bandages, medicines, that sort of thing.”

“How quaint,” Avon remarked.

“It always served me well. You could do with a dressing for your arm.”

He needlessly tugged the sleeve down a little further. “I imagine Sentinel has that contingency covered.”

“You think people don’t die here?”

“Of old age, perhaps.”

“That’s not comforting. All the same, we don’t know what’s out there, Avon. An infection won’t help.” The endless rattle of rain on the vessel’s buckled sides sparked an idea. “If we catch the water, at least we could clean the wounds.”

“No,” he retorted. “What have I told you about this place?”

“Yes, but rain―”

“Got in my eyes and mouth, and now I have gaps in my memory.” His voice lost some of its vehemence. “I must have known it was happening. I managed two letters and then it was gone.”

The thought of what that must have been like was suffocating. She tried not to allow the image to play of him stumbling back through the forest, water-sodden, with his memories dripping through his fingers like raindrops. How desperate did you have to be to claw what was important to you into your own flesh, she wondered. It almost made her feel sorry for him. Almost, but that was as far as it went, she reminded herself. Avon would not appreciate her pity, however sincere. Worse, he would find a way to use it against her.

With that in mind, she tempered sympathy with the thought that it would do him no harm to know how Blake felt on a daily basis. Not kinder, if he even knew the meaning of the word, but more tolerant perhaps? A forlorn hope, she told herself.

“Don’t touch my clothes,” he said. “One of us should remain uncontaminated.”

“You can’t put them back on,” she protested.

“What choice do I have?”

What had felt like a minor victory at the time seemed petty. And petty gestures, by and large, were not part of her nature. Easy to blame it on the influence of Jocasta. That, at least, could be remedied. 

She selected the largest of the overalls and held them out to him. “These will fit you better, if you can live with the mould.”

He accepted the offering. “I did wonder.”

“I gave you the cleanest.”

“Also the smallest.”

She caught the implication in his voice. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He smiled at her irritation. “Of course, it might be argued that tradition demands―”

“Not here and not with you.”

“And disappoint Sentinel’s expectations?”

She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“This feels calculated. Why not transport us directly to its ‘breeding’ colonies?”

“Settlements,” Jenna corrected him.

“If you prefer.”

“Not particularly. Go and change. I’ll start a fire.” She hesitated. “If you think it’s safe.”

“There’s no people in the immediate area. We could chance it. Unless you want to sit here in the dark.” He paused for effect. “Can you manage?”

She turned her back on him and set about gathering what she need. Eventually his retreating footsteps told her he had gone into the forward compartment. By the time he returned, a small fire was kindling in the centre of the ship, fuelled by the fat from a food pack and a quantity of dead moss and dry leaves. Avon looked almost impressed. 

“Not my first time lost in the wilderness,” she said.

He stepped around her and skirted the edge of the fire. Too large for him, the bottoms of the trousers swept the floor as he passed. Still not a good fit, but better, blurring his outline in a mass of misshapen fabric. 

“We are not lost,” he said. “A location has been selected for us where we will eventually arrive, suitably pacified and ready to accept our ‘new’ lives without question.”

“Whereas in fact we’re heading for the mountains. Aren’t we?”

“We are.” He eased himself down onto the floor, putting the growing flames between them. “Tomorrow, we should head west. There is a ridge that overlooks a range of hills. Beyond that are the mountains.”

It sounded like they had a long way to go. “Will we make it?”

“Not without food and water. What did you find?”

From the pile she had gathered in the corner, she tossed a silver pack over to him. “Standard rations. They expired five years ago, but they’re still sealed, so they should be edible.”

Avon carefully opened the packet and sniffed the contents.

“You can live on it,” said Jenna, enjoying his discomfort, “if you aren’t too fussy.”

“I am,” he returned. “However, under the circumstances...”

“There were also a number of water pouches. We also have water capsules.” He gave her an enquiring look. “They cause a chemical reaction combining oxygen and hydrogen from the atmosphere to create water.”

“From the atmosphere that is trying to drug us in submission?”

“I didn’t say it was perfect.” She threw a water pouch in his direction. He caught it. “I’ve tried one.”

“Did you?”

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty left for you.”

“That wasn’t my concern.”

It took her a moment to realise what he meant. “I survived. It’s safe to drink.” She waited as he tore open the pouch and downed the water. “Avon, these mountains. Why did Blake think they gave us a way out?”

Avon sighed. “If you have the ability to create a planet-wide force field, you have to ask why they did not include the top of the mountains. Let’s say they did. Either the mountains have risen since its creation or the force field is failing. It represents a weakness.”

“Which we can penetrate.”

“That’s the theory.” He dipped into the packet and withdrew a morsel of food which he examined intently before testing it on his tongue. Grimacing with disgust, he set the packet aside. “The presence of this vessel suggests the force field is permeable to some degree, yet Zen reported that probes have been repelled in the past. Size must be a factor.”

“Because Sentinel would need to contain oxygen within the field.”

“It could also be one-directional.”

Despite the warmth of the fire, Jenna felt a chill start to creep into her core.

“What happens if we can’t get out?”

“I’ll find Sentinel and rip out its electronic heart.” Avon leaned forward and tipped the contents of the food packet onto the fire. A sharp crackle arose and the flames leapt higher. “If I can remember how.”

“ _If_ you can find it. _If_ we can climb a mountain. _If_ we can get through a force field.” There were too many ifs for her liking. She nibbled at the lump of grey matter she had pulled from the food packet. ‘Chocolate’ it had been labelled. From the taste, more like chocolate substitute, whatever that was. “Even if we do get to the top,” she said, “how are we meant to communicate with the _Liberator_?”

Avon inched his way over and began to rummage through the food pile. “Cally might help with that.”

“Does her telepathy work over those distances?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Haven’t you asked her?”

“Have you?”

Jenna stared hard at him. “I’m not the one she follows around.”

Avon held her gaze until it became uncomfortable. She was forced to look away. 

“Sorry,” she murmured. “It’s none of my business anyway.”

“That’s right, it isn’t.” He found a packet, opened it and seemed satisfied with the contents. “Sentinel would disagree with you.”

“It’s an odd choice, that’s all I’m saying.”

“A computer works on logic. Blake and Cally have shared ideals.”

“I dread to think what we have.” Jenna clasped her arms around her knees and watched the dancing flames. “Mutual disdain?”

She was aware of his presence beside her. The urge to look up was overwhelming.

“Criminal tendencies,” said Avon at last. “And a desire to be rich.”

Jenna gave a soft snort. “Then I’m lucky you’re not Vila.”

“The need for intelligence would tend to rule him out. However,” he added, “Vila has a certain appeal, so I’m told. He mentions it often enough.”

“I always wondered what you talked about when Cally and I aren’t there.”

“Vila talks. Gan listens. Blake reads. I leave. The conversation has limited appeal.” He retreated back to his side of the fire and picked at the food. “You should rest. I’ll take the first watch.”

“I thought you said there was no one around?”

“For now. That situation may change.”

“Very well.” Jenna gathered up several of the overalls and started to make them into a makeshift bed. Settling down and pulling one up to her chin, she watched the shadows dance on the dirt-streaked ceiling. In the moment before sleep overwhelmed her, she caught the glint of firelight in Avon’s eyes and realised his gaze was upon her. She sat up abruptly. “I can’t do this. Not if you’re going to sit there and watch me sleep.”

An insouciant smile plucked at the corners of his mouth. “Where do you want me to go?”

“Nowhere.” It was uncomfortable to admit. The thought of him not being there was worse than his actual presence. “Nowhere,” she repeated, less confidently this time.

She turned over and faced the wall. She could still feel the weight of his stare. Several long minutes was enough to fray her nerves. 

“What now?” she said irritably, rolling back over to confront him.

He let her wait, his pause both meaningful and intimidating, intentionally so. “This could have been avoided,” he replied finally. “You should have come away with me, Jenna, when we had the chance.”

“The price was too high.”

“Was it worth it?”

With an exasperated sigh, Jenna gathered up her bedding and stalked off in the direction of the forward compartment. “I’ll take my chances with the pilot. Him, I can trust.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Avon.

“Ask me when we’re back on the _Liberator_.” She half-turned and glanced over her shoulder at him. There was speculation in his eyes, but he did not press further. “Do you think they’re all right, Blake and Cally?”

He shrugged lightly. “Probably trying to save the world one resident at a time.”

In the half-light, Avon looked tired, his face darkened by stubble. That same swell of sympathy tugged at her conscience and forced the words out before she could stop them.

“I’m sure your memory will return once we’re out of Sentinel’s influence,” she offered.

“If not, I won’t miss what I can’t remember.” He rose abruptly. “Good night, Jenna. I would say sleep well, but I doubt any of us will.”

Jenna smiled in spite of herself. “You never know. Things might look better in the morning.”

Thunder grumbled in the distance, drawing his attention away. “Based on previous experience, I wouldn’t have thought so.”

* * * * * * *

_No, Avon, I wouldn’t have thought so either. And just what are Blake and Cally up to, I wonder..._


	6. What Remains

The tree root snagged at his toe. Blake stumbled, his equilibrium gone beyond correcting. His left wrist took his full weight and buckled at a ninety degree angle. A bolt of white-hot pain ran down his arm and into his shoulder. He lay where he was, breathing hard, staring up at unfamiliar stars in an artificial sky, until Cally’s face came into his field of vision.

“I’m all right,” he replied in answer to her question. 

He forced himself up. The ache from his wrist was intense in a stomach-churning nausea-inducing way that was only mildly worse than the dizziness that had been his constant companion for the last few hours.

“We must rest, Blake,” Cally said with concern. “And we must eat.”

“No.” 

He had been firm on that point. The memory losses they had experienced had occurred after they had taken that first water from a forest stream. It seemed a logical assumption, a simple case of cause and effect. There was nothing new; Sentinel had replicated a system the Federation had been using for years. Or was it the other way around, he wondered. Ten thousand years Sentinel had claimed to be in existence. Was it so fanciful to imagine that the Federation had somehow penetrated its defences to steal Jocasta’s secrets?

One day, he would have to find out. For now, he had more immediate concerns.

“Cally, we’re being poisoned,” he said. “We must treat everything with suspicion.”

He had already explained it to her and still she looked unconvinced. Having no food or water since should have halted the decay. What remained of his memories seemed intact. Without Cally, he would not have been aware he had lost anything at all. Another good reason for splitting them up, he had reasoned. The more people to reinforce the memories, the better the chance of resisting. With just the two of them... well, what he really knew about Cally was limited, probably about as much as she knew about him. Supporting each other would not work for long.

“We cannot continue like this without food or water,” she said, not unreasonably.

“I’ve been without sustenance for longer than this,” he retorted. “On Earth, I did without for thirty-six hours to escape the influence of the suppressants.” He got to his feet and the world started a giddy dance. “This should be nothing. I should not be feeling this way after only a few hours.”

“This is not Earth,” said Cally. “There are a number of factors which could be lowering your resistance.”

“Not for much longer.” 

He said it with more confidence than he felt. In reality, it was likely to be days before they got to the mountains. They could manage for a while without food, but they would never last without liquids. Soon after that, they would forget why they ever wanted to leave and be content to stay, knowing no other life. The very thought of it should have ignited that a familiar surge of rage through him. He waited and, when it did not come, sought it out. Where it should have been was a hole at his centre that spoke of nothing. 

His insides ran cold. He had been deceiving himself. The process had not been halted, only slowed.

“Cally, contact the _Liberator_ ,” he said. “Tell them to find some way of locating us and bringing us up.”

“How? The detectors were unable to penetrate the force field before.”

“I don’t know!” He saw the wary look she gave him and moderated his tone. “Please, just try.”

“I will,” she assured him.

He left her to it, taking his time to brush the dust from his clothes. It was only when he caught the sudden change in her breathing that he realised something was wrong. Cally looked stricken. Her body was trembling and her mouth gaped as though she was struggling for breath. Blake hurried to her side and put his arm around her to give her support.

“Cally, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t...” Her hand was at her throat as if trying to free herself from some unseen constriction. “I can’t remember.”

“What can’t you remember?”

Frightened eyes turned to his. “I can’t contact them. Blake, I don’t remember how to do it.”

Not for the first time, he cursed this planet and everything on it. Cruelty disguised as a means to happiness, on a scale unimaginable, robbing them of everything that made them who they were. That this should happen to Cally, who had given up her home and her world for her convictions and had not flinched from death, to have this stolen from her was inhumane.

“It’s all right,” he said gently. “Come here and sit down.”

He guided her to the trunk of a fallen tree and sat down beside her. He kept his arm around her as slowly her composure was restored. 

“I’ve never been without my telepathy,” she said quietly. “I learned to communicate with others on Auron with my mind before I could talk.” She put her hands over her ears. “The world is very loud.”

“Loud?” The only noise he could hear was the rustle of the breeze playing over fallen leaves.

“Yes. My senses are usually turned inwards. Without my telepathy to moderate them, I am overwhelmed.”

Blake gave her shoulder a consoling rub. “You haven’t lost it, Cally. It’s still there.”

“I know. I should not have panicked.”

He smiled encouragingly at her. “I think it’s permissible under the circumstances.”

“You don’t understand. The Auronar do not experience panic.”

“Never?”

“Rarely. When there are other minds to support you, the positive influences are able to override negative emotions. This _feeling_... is new to me. I find it confusing. As are others.”

Her hand stole to his. Her touch was as light as silk on his skin, enfolding him in a warm embrace.

“Cally, I don’t think we should―”

In a moment she had pressed her lips against his, silencing his words with a butterfly kiss that became passionate and demanding. Blake tried to pull away before he lost himself and instead found his senses being seduced. She melted against him and he felt his body loosen. His hand clasped gently into the back of her hair, pressing in softly as their breaths mingled. Impossible to fight against the thoughts that were going through him and yet that old voice of warning insisted on being heard. He listened and pulled away.

“No,” he said firmly. Her arms continued to tangle around his neck. He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “Cally, stop it. Wake up.”

He saw the change in her eyes. A flush came to her cheeks.

“What happened?” she said, confused.

“Look at me,” Blake said insistently. “Have you eaten anything?”

She gave a doleful nod and lowered her eyes. “A handful of berries. I’m sorry, Blake. I didn’t think it would hurt.”

“It’s all right.”

“You should go on without me.”

“I’m not leaving you behind.”

“Sentinel will use its influence to make me slow you down. I am susceptible. Don’t you see?”

“We leave together or not at all.” He helped her up. “There must be another means of communicating with the _Liberator_.”

She frowned. “There was a way?”

The odd remark made him glance in her direction. There was no flicker of recognition in her face. First the ability, and then the memory that she possessed it all had been erased. A high price to pay for hunger. There was a small mercy in that. She would no longer grieve for what had been taken from her.

“Come on, Cally. Let’s go.”

“She’s right, the Auron woman.”

The unexpected voice made Blake’s head whip round. Standing there, at the edge of the treeline, was a stooped elderly man with colourless eyes and long straggly white hair. A shapeless beige tunic was draped about his emaciated frame, grazing the knees of his dirt-stained brown trousers. 

Blake pushed Cally behind him. A futile gesture, given her training, if she could remember any of it. Even without it, the newcomer was no match for either of them. He looked as though a strong wind would snap him in half. As benign as he seemed, however, Blake had learned to distrust everything on this wretched planet.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The vision emerged from behind the protective harbour of an aged tree and drew nearer. Blake took a step back, aware that he was fast approaching the edge of the escarpment.

“That’s close enough. Now, your name.”

The man came to a faltering halt. “I am Enki. Is it true?” Desperation lit his pale eyes and electrified the skeletal fingers that reached out, imploring. “Do you really have a ship?”

“If you’ve been listening to our conversation, you know we have,” said Blake. “What do you want?”

“To help, if I can. And in return, you help me.”

Blake sidestepped the proposition. Beware of Jocastans bearing gifts, he told himself. “How long have you been following us?”

“Long enough,” said Enki. “I know you did not crash. I saw the barrier.” He jabbed his finger in their direction. “There are others with you.”

“Yes,” Blake said. “How can we find them?”

Enki shook his head furiously. “They are gone. They are like her now.” He nodded to Cally. “They are lost. Like the others.”

“What others?”

“She was right. You will eat. You will drink. You will forget. Everyone does.” His head bowed. “Except Enki.”

“Really?” Blake said sceptically. “Why is that?”

“This is not my world. I am from Zorindar in Sector Eleven.”

Blake shrugged helplessly. The name was unfamiliar to him.

“I have heard of Zorindar,” said Cally carefully. “But as a myth. The people were said to be metamorphs.”

“So we are,” said Enki. “Your Federation came to Zorindar and took us to work in the deep mines on Calliope because of our ability to adapt to environments which would be toxic to your people. The borinium radiation in the mines did not affect us, not at first. It took many years for my people to die.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Blake heavily. “How did you come to be on Jocasta?”

“I escaped. I saw my chance and I abandoned my people, because I feared not to exist.” Enki swallowed with difficultly as though the shame of it was threatening to choke him. “I left on a transport vessel. On the way to the processing plants, it developed problems. They had to land on Jocasta.” The sound of a branch snapping under the weight of an unseen animal in the forest made him jump and glance nervously over his shoulder. “Once here, they could not leave. Sentinel would not allow it. Then, one by one, they did not want to leave. They left the ship and did not return.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Twelve of your years. They went to live with the others.” Enki started forward again, eagerly. “But you, you have a ship waiting. You can leave. I can help you. But you must take me with you.”

Blake turned to Cally. “What do you think?”

“He seems genuine,” she said.

“It could be a trap.”

“What does Sentinel have to gain? It knows we will succumb sooner or later.”

“True.” He looked over at Enki. “Very well. How can you help us?”

“You will forget. You will need a memory. I shall be your memory. Without me, you will never leave. Please, trust me, I beg you, before it is too late for all of us!"

* * * * * * *

_Trust him? Sounds like a plan. Or is it a really bad idea? Well, what do you reckon?_


	7. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

A voice cut through her dreams and Jenna opened her eyes. Avon, back in his usual clothes, was framed against the bright light streaming through the dirty cabin window.

“Come on,” he said. “We have to go.”

She stretched and eased the stiffness in her muscles. A long night in the cramped flight chair had left her sore, but rested.

“You didn’t wake me,” she said, yawning.

“I fell asleep.”

“Careless.”

“It wasn’t intentional. We appear not to have had any visitors.”

“How’s your memory?”

He gave her that annoying slow blink of his, which told her she should have known better than to ask. “How would I know if the gaps I have today are the same I had yesterday?”

She said nothing. He had a point.

“Let’s go,” he said, heading out. A dead ivy branch shivered a coating of dust over his shoulders as he passed. “I’ve gathered up the supplies. There’s nothing else we can salvage.”

Jenna followed him out, trying to ignore how itchy and uncomfortable she felt. A wash would have been welcome. Time was when the joy of fresh water on her skin had been a luxury on those runs in ships stripped down to the bare framework. Cargo came first then, not the comfort of the crew. Not that she had cared; for the freedom of flight and an expanse of endless night she would have sacrificed everything. The _Liberator_ had changed all that. 

Now the thought of two days in the same clothes seemed a hardship. Images of those cool forest pools they had encountered on their long trek came irresistibly to mind. Then she remembered Avon returning rain-sodden, his arm torn to shreds and his past in pieces, and the thought lost its appeal. 

He had been busy in her absence. A strip of fabric had been tied around his arm to secure his flapping sleeve and he had fashioned a bag from one of the overalls. There was nothing left for her to do. It was time to go.

Out amongst the trees, the humidity was rising as the sun warmed the wet earth. By mid-afternoon, Jenna was on her fourth water pouch and feeling dizzy. Avon had stopped, resenting every second of the delay if she read his expression correctly. Any minute now she was expecting a flurry of complaints that she was slowing him down. And if he thought that, how much longer before he started making own plans, without her?

Watching him, supporting himself against a tree, breathing hard, she wondered how much further he was prepared to go before he was forced to admit he was human after all. He needed reminding, for her sake, as well as his.

“Have a drink, Avon,” she said.

He shook his head stubbornly. A fine trickle of moisture ran down the side of his face from his damp hair.

“We should not waste our supplies,” he said.

Jenna collected a pouch and forced it into his trembling hand. “Drink it. I can’t carry you.”

He relented, thoroughly annoyed he had allowed his need to show. Finished, he ripped the pouch open and dabbed the last few drops on his face.

“You should shed the tunic too.” She anticipated his protest. “I’m too hot to find you arousing.”

He pulled it over his head, bundled it up and stowed it in the bag. Beneath, his shirt was black with sweat and clinging to his lean frame. Jenna tried not to look.

“What now?” said Avon, catching her eye.

“Nothing.” She cleared her throat. “Let me lead.”

The descent through the forest was easier than the hills they had climbed. Several times she skidded on damp leaves. Branches ripped at her sleeves and shredded the shiny fabric around her collar. When she slipped and tore a slice from her purple trousers, Avon was there to pick her up and set her back on her feet. She tried to pull the material back around her thigh and only succeeded in making it worse.

“The _Liberator’s_ clothes store would be useful right now,” she said irritably. Beside her, Avon was fretting again at the delay. She searched for something to distract him. “You’re overdue for a visit too. You’ve been wearing that outfit for weeks.”

Avon gave her a curious look. “I have several.”

“You do?” She struggled to contain her surprise. “Why? There’s plenty of choice.”

“I have other things to think about.”

He released her arm and stepped around her. Jenna followed, treading in the footprints he left.

“You’ve not sent much time in space, have you, Avon? You have to learn to amuse yourself. It gets very boring very quickly.”

“There are better ways to fill my time.”

“I’m sure there are... if you intend to stay.”

He came to a halt so abruptly Jenna bumped into him.

“Listen!” he hissed, holding his hand up for silence.

Beyond the song of birds and the chirrup of insects, there was another noise. A soothing rhythmic murmur in the distance, of water chattering across shingle, withdrawing and advancing in equal measure.

Jenna frowned. “That sounds like...”

Avon was gone before she had finished her thought. He ran down the sloping escarpment, dodging between the thinning trees. The earth became golden as the ground levelled out, and gave way to sand dunes peppered with tall swaying grasses. She was slightly behind as he reached the crest of a bank and stopped. Joining him, she found herself looking at a calm sea, stretching out in all directions, the afternoon sun scattering diamonds across its surface. And far away, the mountains with their peaks shrouded in cloud, were as distant as ever.

It was a bitter blow. She gave way to the tiredness in her muscles and sank down onto the yielding sand. It was over. Another of Sentinel’s barriers, and this one just as formidable as the last.

“Get up,” said Avon.

“We can’t reach them.”

“We can go round. Or over.”

She gave a short laugh. “I’m not swimming.”

“I said over.” He shielded his eyes against the sun and pointed to several small shapes pulled up on the beach some way off to his right. “Those look like primitive fishing vessels.”

“Boats?” Jenna struggled to get up. The sand sucked at her feet, pulling her back down. “Any people about?”

“Not that I can see,” said Avon. “They must be around here somewhere. Let’s get back to forest. We can take a boat under cover of darkness.”

“If Sentinel allows it.”

Avon’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “It appears to have lost interest in us. Strange, don’t you think?”

“Then why don’t we head back to the clearing? We might catch up with Blake and Cally.”

“They could be anywhere by now. Our supplies will run out before we find them. Assuming the barrier is no longer in place.”

As Jenna turned to head down the sand bank, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Several grey-headed figures were heading in their direction, waving their hands frantically. She grabbed Avon’s elbow and dragged him down onto the sand.

“I see them,” he said, lifting his head enough to glimpse the approaching danger. “Have they seen us?”

His question was answered in the cries of the approaching figures, bidding them not to be afraid.

“Are we?” whispered Jenna.

“We’d be fools not to be,” said Avon. “Come on!”

He half-ran, half-slid down the side of the dune, Jenna hard on his heels. Through the grasses, back to the shelter of the forest, and in amongst the shelter of the trees. Before them rose the steep slope of the escarpment. Coming down had been treacherous enough. Trying to clamber back up it was going to take time. And those voices were growing ever closer.

Daunting as it was, Jenna had not expected Avon to stop. He was scanning his surroundings, his eyes darting about as though he was looking for something. 

“What’s wrong?” Jenna asked.

“We can’t do it.” There was a frightening air of finality about his statement. “Whichever way we run, they will see us.”

“We have to try.” She started forward, expecting him to follow. He remained where he was. “Avon, you’re not serious.”

“If we run,” he said, “they will know we are not compliant. All they have to do is lock us up and wait for dehydration to break our resolve.”

Jenna folded her arms resolutely. “They will have to wait a long time.”

“I imagine they have other ways of achieving what they want. Let’s not find out what they are.”

“I’m not going with them.”

He lost patience and grabbed her by the shoulders. His fingers pressed so hard, it hurt. “We have to!” he insisted. “We have one chance to get off this planet. We cannot afford to lose control!”

She pushed him away. “You keeping saying ‘we’. How do I know you mean it?”

A cry sounded through the forest. Avon glanced in its direction before looking back at her. “We do this together or not at all. Well?”

What he was proposing was madness. His argument though was persuasive. At their back was the sea and the residents of Jocasta. Before them, a near vertical climb and no knowing what would be waiting for them at the top of it. And here she was, with Avon, as usual with an answer to everything. Avon, suggesting the path of least resistance. Avon, who she would have trusted as far as he trusted her.

“What if we fight?”

An annoying smile flashed across his face. “That may have worked for Blake, but there is no lesson to be learned here, Jenna. There is no Travis―”

“And you’re not Blake, yes, I know.” She shook her head. A night in a tree had been one thing, a lifetime on this planet was another. It might almost be worth going along with his crazy plan if it meant escape. “Can we do it? Pretend to like each other?”

“No,” he said slowly. “We have to pretend to _love_ each other. That’s not the same thing.”

“You don’t have to like someone to love them. So I’ve been told,” she added pointedly.

“Now is as good a time as any to find out. Whatever happens, we go with them and leave under cover of darkness. Their settlement cannot be far from here.” He dropped to his knees and began to search inside the bag. Several food pouches were tossed in Jenna’s direction. “Hide them in your clothes. I’ll leave the rest of the supplies here and we’ll retrieve them tonight.”

He scraped a hole and stowed the bag inside, covering it with a clump of ivy. Then he rose and, taking up a stone, scratched a diagonal line on the nearest tree. Tucking several water pouches in his shirt, he pulled his tunic back on. 

“Does it show?” he asked.

“You look... well-fed,” said Jenna.

“At least someone is.” He tugged his tunic down, trying to flatten the bulge around his stomach without much success. “Time to test your theory. Ready?” 

He held out his hand to her, waiting for her to take it.

She gave him a searching look. “If your next words are ‘trust me’, I’ll know you’re lying.”

Avon said nothing. Still the hand was extended. He was right. It had to be done. 

Jenna sighed and placed her hand in his. Sand grated against her skin, making his palm feel strangely rough, like unfinished stone. It did not suit him, she thought. His were not the most elegant hands perhaps – they were too broad and peppered with the scars of rogue electric burns – but practical, capable of taming the most complex of computer systems. Here, he was out of place, as much as she was. She craved space beneath her feet, not this cloying sand.

As gestures went, letting him take the lead was a start. The sound of voices betrayed the presence of others and, when finally their shapes could be glimpsed between the trees, Avon paused, using the cover of a gnarled trunk to stay out of the sight.

“There they are,” he whispered.

There were six of them, two women and four men, elderly, silver-haired and unthreatening in their simple homespun clothing.

“Sure you don’t want to fight our way out?” said Jenna. “We can handle them.”

“There will be others. They know we are here. They will keep searching.” He gave her the briefest glance. “Let me do the talking. Don’t contradict me.”

She bristled at his tone of voice. “Anything you say, _dearest_.”

“Congratulations,” he returned archly. “You’ve just failed the test. This is not a game, Jenna. Save the sarcasm for when we get back on the _Liberator_.”

“Sorry, _my love_.”

“Better.” His voice became softer. “I’d prefer you didn’t call me that. It feels as though I’ve heard it somewhere before.”

“Your memory coming back?”

He gave a non-committal shrug. “Or fading. It was a vague impression. Now it’s gone.”

“Even so, it must be a comfort to know at least one person didn’t find you objectionable.”

He started forward, jerking her arm as he did so, deliberately, Jenna thought. On he went, out from the cover of the trees into the open where the gathering waited. Their eyes lit with joy when they saw them and with open arms greeted their appearance.

“Forgive us,” said Avon. He had raised his voice a pitch or two to add to his performance. If that was his best attempt at humility, Jenna thought, then they were in trouble. “We did not know if we would be welcome.”

“Of course you are, my dear friends,” said the oldest of the men. “Let me look upon you. Such an attractive couple. It has been a long time since we have seen such youth.”

Wizened of face and slightly hunched, a fringe of grey-white hair hung around his balding, mottled scalp. He appeared as frail as gossamer, but then, as Jenna reminded herself, appearances, like Avon’s burgeoning midriff, could be deceptive.

“All are welcome, and you especially, my dear young friends,” he went on. “I am Merek. I am leader of the sea people.”

“I am Avon,” he replied in that same ingratiating tone. “This is my wife, Jenna. We were lost.”

“No, my friends, you were sent to us,” said Merek serenely. “Our need was great. Sentinel provides. Come, you must be tired.”

“Yes, greatly. My wife especially. She is expecting our first child.”

Jenna felt her mouth fall open only to flinch as Avon’s nails stabbed into her palm, forestalling anything she might be about to say. A murmur went through the gathering and they drew closer, regarding her with round wondering eyes.

“A child,” said one of the women in awe. “We are blessed. We will take care of you, Jenna.”

“That’s good to know,” she said with difficulty.

“And we thank you,” said Avon.

“Then come, my friends, let us show you your new home,” said Merek. “Tonight we must celebrate our good fortune!”

“What the―” Jenna hissed as they drew away.

“We are fortunate indeed,” Avon said, smiling down the glare she was giving him. “Are we not?”

“If you say so,” she muttered. “I just hope you know what you're doing.”

* * * * * * *

_Hmm! Sounds more like trouble to me. Let's hope Blake and Cally are having better luck..._


	8. Water, Water Everywhere

“What if it’s not a force field?” Vila, a drink in one hand and another on his mind, was regarding Zen thoughtfully. “I mean, what if it’s something else?”

“It is a force field,” Gan replied. “Cally told us so.”

“Cally told _you_ ,” Vila said with a shrug. “She didn’t bother telling me.”

“That’s because you were panicking.”

“No one ever tells me anything,” Vila rambled on. “Which is a shame really because when I do have something to say, it’s worth listening to. Well, some of the time anyway. ‘The Sage of the Delta Grades’, that’s what they used to call me. My father said I had an old head on my shoulders.”

“So what happened to the rest of you?” said Gan with a smile.

“Can I help it if I’m blessed with a youthful appearance? It’s why no one ever takes me seriously. I’m like that woman who kept telling everyone what was going to happen in the future and no one ever believed her.”

Gan was only half-listening. “Oh? Who’s that?”

Vila screwed up his forehead in an effort of remembrance. “I can’t remember off-hand, but she had the same trouble as me. No one ever listened to her. And look what happened to them. Whoever they were.”

“Well,” Gan said with a sigh, “you don’t have to be able to predict the future to know that the others are in trouble. Cally said she would stay in touch.” He glanced over at Vila. “Has she been in contact with you?”

“Not a word. Or a thought.”

“Then something must have happened to them.”

He stood staring at Zen’s screen, arms folded. It had been too long. Regular contact, Cally had said. That had been over twelve hours ago. Gan had forced himself to stay awake during that time, waiting for her next message. He was sure he had not missed it. When first he had heard her voice, it had been distant, like a fading echo. For all her assurances that they were safe, concern had still played havoc with his gut. Four of their friends, trapped on a planet their detectors could not penetrate, and now out of contact.

“Well, what do we do now?” he said.

Vila took another sip of his drink and cocked his head, a sly expression on his face. “Want to know what I think?”

“I’ll take any suggestions at the moment, Vila. As long as it’s sensible.”

“I’m always sensible.” He appeared affronted. “Even when I’m not.”

“All right then. What is it?”

Vila nodded to the image on the screen. “That’s an alien force field out there. It stands to reason it uses alien technology. Now, we’ve got Zen scanning for the sort of force fields humans create. Energy and the like. What if it isn’t? Or what if alien energy isn’t the same as we would use? Well, Zen is going to say he can’t get a reading, isn’t he, if he’s searching for something that isn’t there. If you see what I mean.”

Gan did. In a strange sort of way, Vila was making sense.

“Well, what do we ask Zen to do?” said Gan.

“Oh, I don’t know. Let’s try this. Zen, analyse the clouds on Jocasta.”

“Sensors indicate a composition comprising one oxygen atom to two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds,” Zen intoned.

Vila sat back in his chair, grinning smugly. “There you are. It was right under our noses all the time. Clever, that alien technology. How does it feel to be in the presence of a genius?”

“I’ll let you know when I meet one,” Gan returned genially. “What does it mean?”

“Water.” Vila’s expression became serious. It sat oddly on his normally mobile features. “Not that it helps us much, but Jocasta’s force field is made of water.”

* * * * * *

“Impossible!”

That had been Blake’s first reaction when Enki had shared what he knew of Jocasta the night before. A barrier of water encircling the planet seemed too implausible to be true. It had fed his doubts about their new friend. The more Enki explained it, however, the more sense it made.

“No human would survive on Jocasta without it,” Enki had said. “The barrier keeps the environment tolerable for your people.”

“But not yours?” Blake had asked.

Enki’s eyes had dulled and not even the dancing flames of the fire could put the spark back in them. “My world’s atmosphere is pure nitrogen. In my own form, I would die here.”

“Whose home was it before it became ours?” Cally had asked.

The dreamy quality of her voice was giving Blake pause. Raging thirst, the like of which he had never known, had finally driven her to drink Jocasta’s water. Within an hour, the effect was noticeable. Watching the Cally he knew being replaced by this languid stranger who hung on his every word and stared at him with the adoration of a worshipper was disconcerting. Her call was gentle and persistent and he could feel himself starting to respond. 

Once he did, there would be no going back. They would be prisoners of themselves and Sentinel forever.

“I don’t know what they were called,” Enki had answered her. “They must have been very different from you. Sentinel created this environment to suit your people.”

“Then this is artificial?” Blake had said. Trying to concentrate on the conversation was difficult when his mind kept turning to other things. Long slender fingers that touched parted lips, the carmine trail left by the juice of cherries on milky white skin. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the sight of it and forced his attention back to the present. “But the trees, the animals – it appears Earth-like.”

“So it would,” Enki had said, chewing on the diminishing remains of an apple core. The fruit he had gathered was barely contained in the rusted metal box he had brought with him. Grapes spilled from the sides, the size of which Blake had not seen for a long time. Pineapples, oranges, bananas, all growing incongruously side by side, a luxury on Earth, but here on Jocasta as plentiful as the stars that pricked the heavens. 

“A human ship landed here once,” he had explained. “They didn’t survive long – Jocasta’s atmosphere was hostile to your people back then – but what they left behind was a seed-bank and genetic material for animal life. Sentinel based the look of this world on what it found in that ship.”

Blake had regarded him curiously. “How do you know all this?”

“The information was in Sentinel’s database.” Enki had glanced up in annoyance when his answer was met with sceptical silence. “You don’t believe me?”

“I find it hard to believe Sentinel would allow you access.”

“I was a systems analyst on my planet before your people took me prisoner and put me to work in the mines,” he had retorted defensively.

“I don’t doubt it,” Blake had said. “But why didn’t Sentinel stop you?”

“Why would it? Once the people here succumb, they aren’t interested in things like that. Look at your friend.” He had nodded to Cally, idly twirling her hair around her fingers as she gazed up at the night sky. “She doesn’t care any more.”

Reluctantly, Blake had acknowledged he was right.

“Sentinel doesn’t have any defences. Why would it need them? Everyone here is happy. Sentinel provides and that’s all they know, all they _want_ to know.” Finished, Enki had tossed the core over his shoulder. “That leaves Sentinel to concentrate on what it considers important: maintaining the barrier and keeping the environment stable. But there’s a problem.”

“Oh?”

“Power. It’s running out. The original inhabitants never imagined their defence system would be active for so long. They were so concerned with being happy that they didn’t realise the consequences of allowing it to rule their lives.”

“They no longer cared,” Blake had said gravely.

“And Sentinel did its job too well. It protected the people and kept them isolated. Over ten thousand years, they lost their genetic diversity. Then the population began to dwindle. Their mistake was not destroying the human ship. They allowed Sentinel access to its systems to analyse it. Well, to a computer programmed to protect, the solution to its problem was obvious. Its own people were dying, and here was another species, readily available. All it had to do was provide for them by altering Jocasta to meet their needs.”

Enki had paused in his narrative. The sick feeling swelling in the pit of his stomach was telling Blake what to expect next.

“Sentinel killed its own people to make Jocasta habitable for humans,” he had said.

Enki had nodded. “It completed the transformation and then all it had to do was wait.” His gaze had travelled around him. “It’s a paradise, so I hear your people keep saying. Who wouldn’t want to be here?”

Blake had snorted. “Anyone who isn’t drugged into submission.”

“They seem happy. Your friend seems happy.”

At the mention of her name, Cally had smiled at him, sweetly and rather vacantly. She had reached for Blake, her hand imploring him to take it. It had taken all his control not to reciprocate. The sheer effort was taking its toll. Tiredness had loosened the reins and an unreasonable, irresistible feeling of rage was welling up inside him. He had struggled to identify the source, only to feel it surge to greater life when he saw that Enki was smiling indulgently at Cally.

Blake had told himself he was being manipulated and fought it back into the shadows.

“Cally is only happy because she doesn’t know any differently,” he had said with difficulty. “Before this happened, she wanted to leave as much as I do.” Something that had been nagging at him finally made sense. “The process takes time, Enki. You said your ship didn’t crash. Didn’t the crew try to escape before they were drugged?”

“Several times. Every time they reached the atmosphere, it blocked them. The ship couldn’t penetrate the barrier.”

“So,” Blake had said thoughtfully, “it will allow a ship in but not out. That might be useful.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem for your vessel, if it is as powerful as your friend claims.”

An innocent enough comment, yet it had Blake grinding his teeth. Cally had thrown caution to the wind in trusting their new companion. She had told him nearly everything there was to know about the _Liberator_. Enki had listened and had sworn to preserve to memory all she had told him. It had been too much, if Blake had been honest. Well-meaning Enki might be, but the knowledge he had been given freely would have been worth a small fortune to the Federation.

Not for the first time, the thought had crept unbidden into his mind that all Enki had to do was to get off Jocasta and take his information straight to the nearest Federation outpost. Then, hard on its heels had come another thought, that the only way to stop that happening was to kill him. _Now_ , the impulse urged, _do it now before it is too late_.

Blake had told himself it was his paranoia talking and had tried to ignore it. But something about Enki’s last words, the implied criticism, that inflamed him. It roared to the surface, untameable, primeval, demanding immediate release. Blake fought it and, for a fleeting moment, thought he had conquered it. Then Enki had made the mistake of smiling again at Cally and the shackles were gone.

He had ended up top of the other man, his hands closed around the withered throat, intent on driving the life from him with every ounce of strength he possessed. Enki’s eyes had bulged and the purple tongue had lolled from the gaping mouth. Then suddenly beneath Blake’s fingers, the skin had begun to change texture to the rough scales of a reptile and the throat had widened, forcing his hands apart. Beneath him, Enki had changed from an elderly man to a giant reptilian. The illusion shattered.

Blake had found himself being thrown aside as Enki dragged himself away. Fearful and hurt, he had begun to transform again, the long cumbersome limbs retracting, the body minimising, and fur taking the place of scale. The small rodent-like creature had taken one final look over its shoulder before it scampered away. With it was going their hopes for escape.

“I’m sorry!” Blake called out. “Please, we need your help!”

The creature had paused at the edge of the forest. The eyes that had met his were wary.

“You know I have a ship. All I have to do is find a way of communicating with it. If you can help us, please, _please_ give us another chance.”

For the longest time, Blake had thought Enki was lost to them. Then the metamorph had begun to change, shedding fur for flesh until the hunched creature had become a crouching young man, fit and strong and more than a match for Blake should the tables turn again. Still he maintained his distance.

“The others were like you,” Enki had said. “They turned on me. It is in your nature.”

“No, it isn’t,” Blake had said. “I don’t know why...” He had rubbed a hand through his hair in agitation. “It won’t happen again.”

“Yes, it will. You won’t be able to stop yourself. The others tried to kill me, as you did. They saw me as a threat. I can choose any form I wish. This form was the first I chose. I thought I could be like them. That was my mistake. Yours is to believe you can fight your nature.”

“This is _not_ me. Sentinel is doing this.”

“I thought you were different. I had hope.” Enki blinked slowly, wearied by yet another disappointment. “I cannot help you. You will die here. All your people die here. Those who came with me are gone.”

“No!” Blake had yelled as the other man had turned to go. “Don’t leave us here. We have friends. I must help them.”

“How? When you cannot help yourself?”

“We have teleport. Cally wasn’t exaggerating when she told you about that. Now, please, stay away from us if you must, but if you know of a way I can communicate with my ship, tell me and I will get us – _all of us_ – off this planet.”

“There is a way.” Enki had been facing away from him and slowly turned back. “The ship which brought me here, I kept the basic systems operational. I always hoped... some day rescue might come.”

A wave of relief had washed over Blake.

“But that is not the problem,” Enki had continued. “I have no power. To get the systems working, we must steal it from Sentinel. It will try to stop us.”

“Then there is a way.”

“Oh, yes, there is a way. Together we may be successful.”

Blake had nodded. “Enki, I’m sorry for what I did. I wasn’t thinking.”

The younger man had rubbed at his throat where livid marks were beginning to bloom. “Get me home, Blake. I don’t want to die alone.”

With that understanding, they had spent the long night trekking through forest and pasture until the dawn had brought them to a rusting hulk resting on the prairie, cast in gold by the rising sun. Enki had been right about it never flying again, but an inspection had revealed he had spoken the truth about the secondary systems. This place had been his home for the last twelve years and he had protected and nurtured it, along with his hopes.

Now, waiting as Enki gathered up what he needed, Blake stood in the doorway of the old ship, his gaze upon Cally as she sat in the long grass, picking flowers. One by one, she pierced the stems and threaded the delicate petalled-heads one through the other until she had completed the circle. She rose, dancing and delicately smiling, and approached with her offering.

“For you, my love,” she said, placing it around his neck. 

Blake moved his head away to avoid her kiss. The need to respond was growing in intensity, overwhelming even the raw hunger that had turned his stomach to flame. Ordinarily a day without food or water should have been nothing. But on Jocasta, where instincts were stripped to the essentials, it ruled. Sex and nourishment above all else, and to hell with reason. Sentinel’s view of human happiness left much to be desired, Blake thought.

“What is wrong?” Cally said, hurt by his reaction. “Do I not please you?”

Looking into her eyes, there was nothing there he recognised of the person he had known. He at least had awareness. Without Enki, they had would have been lost. Like Avon and Jenna. Did they know, he wondered? Had they been able to resist? Or had Sentinel forced them to accept its ways? What if one of them had succumbed and the other was alone and scared? An image of Jenna filled his mind and the rage once again began its relentless climb from the pit of his gut.

He took a deep, steadying breath. Of course she was all right, he told himself. Avon was with her. Avon would look after her. And if he had not, then he would have to answer for it with his life.

It was a shocking thought. It was enough to startle him back to reality.

“Cally, listen,” he said, taking her by the arms and making her look at him. “I have to go somewhere. I need you to remain here.”

“No, don’t go, stay with me,” she said.

“I have to.” Blake caught the wandering hands that tried to encircle his neck. “I’ll be back soon.”

She smiled languidly. “And then we will make love.”

“Yes, yes, Cally, we will. But I need you to stay here. Whatever happens, you stay _here_ , where I can find you. Promise me.”

“I will be here.”

“Good.” He caught the sound of Enki coming up behind him. “Ready to go?”

In each hand he was carrying a large power pack. Blake noted that the energy levels on both registered zero.

Enki nodded. “This will be dangerous.”

“So is staying,” Blake returned. “Let’s go.”


	9. In a Strange Land

Avon had kept a tight hold on Jenna’s hand as they followed Merek and the others back to their settlement. With every step that took her further from the coast, she regretted listening to him. Playing along with these people had its limits. Now she was resisting and Avon was ignoring her. The more she drew back, the harder he tugged at her arm. She was starting to wonder if he was still on her side.

Away from the dunes, the land had levelled out and the trees had been pushed back to the foot of the hills. Racks of drying fish bordered the edge of the clearing, small gutted corpses swaying in the fresh breeze blowing in from the sea. Beyond were a handful of rough-hewn huts, wooden walled with thick thatched moss-covered roofs, each set in its own enclosure. Penned animals watched them curiously as they approached, whilst several white-haired residents left their work in flower-filled gardens to applaud the presence of newcomers. 

Everyone was smiling, but Jenna had the uneasy feeling of walking a tightrope – one step out of line and the whole facade would come crumbling down. Everything about the place felt false.

“Avon, Jenna, let me introduce you to my son,” said Merek. A tall grey-haired man, lean and muscular from a life spent outdoors and weathered by the salty air, approached from the largest of the dwellings, his hand extended. His father gazed upon him with pride. “This is Devyn. He is the best of us.”

“We welcome you, Avon and Jenna,” said Devyn. Younger than the others, he had a grace about him that made his every movement appear slow and considered. “It has been a long time since Sentinel has blessed us with new members for our community. Your presence brings honour to our people.”

“We are eager to assist in any way we can,” said Avon, apparently affably. Jenna glanced at him. _Make it convincing,_ he had said. To her ears, it sounded forced. She hoped the others were less discerning. 

“We would be glad of your assistance, Avon,” said Deyvn. “There are fields to plough and animals to tend. I have found it difficult to cope with the demands of the work on my own.”

“You have no one to help you?”

Avon had been surveying the gathering. Fifteen people now surrounded them, seemingly the total population of the settlement. Most were old and infirm, clutching with arthritic hands at gnarled sticks for support. Only Devyn and his father stood tall amongst the group.

“Devyn is my only child,” said Merek. His eyes had dulled at the recollection of a painful memory. “When Devyn was born, there were... complications. My wife passed away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Our people have not been fortunate. Your child will be the first born to our people for many years. And then more will follow.”

“I was thinking one would be enough,” said Jenna. 

Avon gave her hand a warning squeeze.

“You are young,” said Merek. “There is time for many more. We must fill every home with children.”

“‘We’?” Jenna muttered. “I don’t see him volunteering.”

“It will be good to hear the sound of children’s laughter once again,” he enthused. “Sentinel has sent Avon and Jenna to save us!”

A chorus of cheers drowned out the last of his words. Hands reached out to touch and pat, almost tentatively as though they were a sacred relics. Jenna drew away from them, only to be struck by the strongest impression that she was being watched. She turned her head to find Devyn staring at her intently, his expression stripped of any readable emotion. The oily smile he gave her did not reach his hooded eyes. 

“Now come, my friends,” Merek announced. “You must be tired. We have a dwelling prepared for you. Follow me.”

Set towards the back of the compound, it was larger than the others, though still not on a scale to rival that which Devyn occupied. Merek pushed the door open and ushered them inside.

“I trust you will be comfortable here,” said he, looking wistfully around the spartan interior, ill-provided with only a shuttered window and guttered candles for illumination. “This was my home.”

“Then we cannot take it,” said Avon.

Merek shook his head. “No, this is a home for a family. By rights, yours should be the largest dwelling but that honour was given to Devyn in expectation of his marriage. Alas, it was not to be. I have not the heart to take it from him. We have waited for many years for Sentinel to select a suitable partner for him, but to no avail. I fear I may not survive to see my grandchildren.”

His features creased into a sad smile. 

“Forgive me, Avon, but at first I thought Sentinel had played a cruel trick upon my poor son when I saw you with Jenna. Now I see that you have been sent to benefit us all. Devyn must be content with his lot. As must we all.” Merek acknowledged the truth of his words with a slow nod. “But I have kept you long enough. There will be time to talk tonight at the celebration. For now, everything you need has been provided. Please, rest and join us later.”

He left, closing the door behind him. As the light was shut out, shadows slid from every quarter, swallowing up shapes and faces. Only when Avon threw the shutters open did daylight drive the gloom back into the corners.

Not that there was much to see, thought Jenna. A bed, a chest, chairs and a table, and a partition dividing the room. Jenna pulled the curtain aside to find a small space behind with a jug and basin of water. Returning to the main room, she found Avon standing still in the centre, his eyes moving rapidly as he inspected the ceiling and walls. She approached him cautiously, trying to see what had caught his attention, only to find herself being suddenly pulled into an embrace.

She began to protest. “Avon, what are you―?”

“My beautiful Jenna,” he said, then quieter: “I need to talk to you.” His hands slid around her waist and inched her closer to him. “Assume we are being monitored. They could be listening and watching. Let’s not disappoint them.”

“If we must.” 

She rested her hands loosely against his chest, waiting. This close, too close, he was intoxicating. The forest had bestowed upon him a woody, earthy smell, enriching deeper sensual undertones. Her mind started to wander, all thoughts of other people and places abandoned. In her imagination she had already placed their lips together and more.

“Jenna.”

The sound of her name brought her back to the present. She looked up into bright, speculative eyes. 

“You’re trembling,” Avon said.

“Who wouldn’t in a place like this?” she said dismissively. 

Letting him know the power he had was unthinkable. Compromised he might have been, but she did not trust him to use that knowledge as a weapon against her. Unless he knew already and was trying to prove a point. A cursory glance had not shown her anything out of place in their surroundings. 

“What have you seen?” she asked.

“Nothing. That’s what worries me.” He brushed the hair from her cheek in a tentative caress, leaving her skin tingling where his touch had been. “Sentinel has teleport capabilities and, amongst other things, climate control. Are we supposed to accept the civilisation that created it is responsible for this place?”

“And why aren’t there any children? Or anyone under the age of fifty?”

Avon gave a small imperceptible nod. “There’s something else. That Federation ship, if the rations expired five years ago, that means it must have been here at least fifteen years.”

“So what?”

“Well, either the Federation sent elusively male crews to Jocasta or...”

“The women were taken elsewhere,” Jenna finished for him. “That’s not a comforting thought.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Are we in danger?” She searched his eyes for an answer and saw her same doubts reflected there. “Avon, I don’t like it. Let’s leave now. They can’t stop us.”

“We don’t know of what they are capable. This could be a test. I’d rather not fail it.” He lowered his head to her ear. Jenna tried not to react as warm breath ghosted across her cheek. “We stick to the plan. We leave under cover of darkness.”

“Tonight might be too late.” She shivered slightly as his fingers traced the line of her collarbone. Remaining indifferent was becoming harder by the minute. “About this baby.”

He paused. “What about it?”

“They were showing too much interest in it for my liking.”

“We are not staying. It doesn’t matter.”

“Not to you, maybe. What if they insist on a physical examination?”

“Stall them.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” His hands were resting lightly on her shoulders. The slightest movement of his fingertips made her catch her breath. “If they believe we have already given them what they want, they might leave us alone. They will not harm you, Jenna. You have what they need.”

“Doesn’t that make you redundant?”

He smiled. “I believe I have demonstrated my worth.”

She scowled back at him. “You really are―”

“Yes, I really am.” As he said it, his head snapped in the direction of the window, as though something had caught his attention. To Jenna’s ears came only the sound of rustling leaves. “I’d like to leave Jocasta alive,” Avon said, gazing back down at her. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“As you long as you remember we’re leaving together.”

“How could I forget?”

Without warning, he tilted her chin up towards him, leaning in a little closer until their foreheads were almost touching. Jenna allowed him to hover there, simply feeling the warmth of his presence. It was only when he angled his head to kiss her that she came back to her senses and pulled back.

“Stop it,” she said harshly. “Stop playing games.”

“There’s someone out there.”

“I don’t believe you. I think you’re doing this on purpose.”

Another noise from outside, the sharp snap of a twig, and Avon suddenly grabbed her, clasping his hands on either side of her face, his mouth pressing at the seam of her lips. 

The kiss was meant to brief and perfunctory, a ritual performed for any onlookers. Instead, it lingered, becoming passionate and demanding. His lips were warm on hers, softer than she could have imagined and she opened her mouth with a low moan, her quickening breath matching his own. The hand she had splayed against his chest, intending to push him away, remained there, rendered helpless in the thrill of the embrace. 

Moving his hand from her cheek to the back of her head, his fingers tangled in her hair, lightly pulling her into him, adding more pressure to their lips, deepening the kiss. She felt herself being pushed against the wall, Avon’s body crushing against hers, gentle but firm. She kissed him hungrily, wanting more, tangling her arms about his neck and arching against his broad chest until there was no space between them, revelling in the contact of his body heat against her own.

And then, just as suddenly, it was over, ended by a knock on the door. Avon pulled away sharply, leaving her breathless and bereft. She hesitantly met his gaze, her heart fluttering. The swirls of emotion she saw there made her pause. Desire matched with utter, utter bewilderment. 

Before she could wonder about it further, he had turned and gone to the door. In his absence, she could feel the heat rising to her cheeks and prayed it was not as noticeable as it felt.

“Clothes,” Avon said, returning and tossing several light grey home-spun garments onto the bed. “They think of everything.”

“Is that the only colour they’ve got?” she asked. A ridiculous comment under the circumstances. As if it mattered. Still, she had to say something, _anything_ to smother how she was really feeling. 

“Apparently.” 

Pointedly, Jenna noted, he was keeping his back to her. 

“We should change if we’re staying,” she said. “You need to get out of those clothes.”

The look he gave her, part-alarm, part-disgust, made her regret what had been a well-meant suggestion.

“They were soaked with rain from last night,” she added quickly. “And you’ve been sweating. The moisture might still be affecting you.”

“Yes.” His voice was thick with confusion. “Dermal absorption might explain it.” His gaze ranged over her dishevelled appearance. Under his scrutiny, Jenna felt strangely exposed in her stained top and the torn flap of her trousers hanging down her thigh. Feeling embarrassed, she cleared her throat and pushed her hair back behind her ear, even though it was already there. Avon took the hint and looked away. “The mud... could be equally toxic.”

“The mud, yes,” said Jenna. Her hands were dappled with light-brown smears. “I need to wash. I need a water pouch.”

“These are all we have,” he returned coldly.

She kept her hand extended. Finally, with a sigh, he relented and reached inside his tunic before passing one across.

“I’ll save half for you,” she said, snatching the uppermost garment from the bed. “I won’t be long.”

“Jenna,” Avon called after her.

“Not now.” 

She could not imagine what he could possibly have to say. Whatever it was would have to wait. She did not trust her own responses, let alone his. Distance was needed and a chance to think. Heading into the side chamber, she pulled the curtain shut and blocked out the sight of him.


	10. Power Struggles

“Getting the power is not a problem,” Enki was explaining. “Keeping it is the challenge.”

Blake was struggling. 

Listening, but not understanding. 

Random patterns of words meaning something and nothing. 

He sought, he grasped, and it slipped through his fingers. As dire as it had ever been, in the days when the conditioning had started to deteriorate, and he had begun to glimpse what once he had been. If that had been the cause of anger and frustration, this was worse. Knowing his very essence was in the process of being dismantled and being powerless to stop it. No Federation to fight against, no face to put to the cruelty, no defence. 

Nothing, save for one fragile hope. It had taken them the better part of the day to ascend an escarpment, where brittle red rocks had shattered beneath their feet and sent them sliding back down to the lower plains on a carpet of loose scree. Finally to the top of the ridge, high above the grasslands where Enki’s ship looked like a child’s toy lost in wilderness, Blake had paused to take in the view. In that moment, when he had drawn the tainted air of Jocasta into his lungs, had he realised he no longer cared.

It should have been terrifying. Instead it was liberating. Yesterday took flight, taking with it the faces of the dead and the names of the living. He breathed, feeling only the immediacy of the present. The heat of the sun, the breeze playing with the hair at the back of his neck, the burn of hunger and the desperate need for water. And Cally, down there amidst the flowers, waiting for him. Enough time had been wasted, he decided. He should go to her.

Only, something held him back. What was that? Conscience, speaking in a voice that called his name over and over? With a face that came into the field of his vision, too distant to swat away, close enough to be unable to avoid?

“Blake?” the voice persisted. “Are you still with me?”

“Who...?” he began uncertainly. 

“Enki,” said the vision. “Do you remember me? Do you remember your friends, Avon and Jenna?”

An elusive memory stirred within him and danced away, mocking his inability to reach it. There was something about those names that once had been familiar.

“Remind me why we are here again,” he said vaguely.

“To get power for my ship so that we can communicate with your friends and leave this planet.”

“Yes.” He fought for the name and found it. “The _Liberator_.”

Enki breathed a sigh of relief. “Good, Blake. Now, you must do exactly what I say.”

Blake watched as his companion began to claw at the compacted soil. The deeper he went, something glinted in the dust. Enki beckoned him to draw near. In the hollow he had created, a hard metal shell riven with embedded pulsing lights was emerging from the crusted earth.

“This is Sentinel,” Enki explained.

Blake forced himself to concentrate. “The computer is the planet?”

“It _became_ the planet. It has had thousands of years to extend its reach from its original confines. This is where it is nearest to the surface. We can tap its power from here.”

“How?”

“A simple matter of energy transfer. I’ve had some success before.”

“Some?” Blake waited for the explanation.

“Sentinel guards its power,” Enki said slowly. “The moment it detects a drain on its reserves, it moves to destroy the source. We must co-ordinate our responses. My power cell will be the decoy. Yours will be hidden, but both must be put into position at the same time. Once mine is destroyed, you must remove yours from the ground immediately.” He glanced up. “Do you understand?”

Blake nodded. “It seems easy enough.”

“It should be, with two of us.” Enki rose and studied Blake critically. “Are you sure you can manage?”

Weak, dizzy, consumed by doubt and confusion, in all honesty, Blake could not give him a positive answer.

“This, just about,” he said. “After that, I don’t know. I don’t think I can get us back to the ship.”

Colour rose to the other’s man cheeks. “You promised―”

“I did.” Blake held up his hand. “I will get you off this planet, but I’m going to need your help to do it.” He struggled to marshal his thoughts. “As a metamorph,” he said, “are you able to imitate individuals?”

Enki’s eyes narrowed. “It is forbidden to assume the direct form of another.”

“It is possible?”

“All things are possible.”

“Then you must become me,” said Blake insistently. “You will have to communicate with the _Liberator_ because I doubt I will remember what to say.”

“Very well,” said Enki.

He had not needed much convincing, Blake noted. With the stakes for survival this high, the rules were negotiable.

“Assuming there are no secondary defences,” he said with difficulty, “the signal should carry through the water barrier. Tell Vila to bring the ship into the upper atmosphere. Not all the way, halfway, enough penetrate the force field for the teleport to work without becoming trapped in it. Tell him to bring down three bracelets – three, do you understand? Tell him you will be accompanying us.”

Enki nodded solemnly.

“And...” The words unravelled into nonsense. He pressed his fist to his forehead and forced them back into order. “Tell him to gather as much information about this planet as he can. We need to find...” Their names escaped him. Only their shadows remained. “The others,” he finished weakly.

“I will convey your message,” said Enki, laying his hand on his shoulder. “Come, Blake. Let us do what must be done.”

Blake took up position behind a boulder. At his feet, the scraped earth revealed the beating heart of the machine that ruled this planet. From his location, he watched Enki shrivel, grow fur, his ears sprout long from the sides of his head and his frame transform into that of a small mammal, bent forward on short front legs with larger, more powerful hindquarters.

The creature caught his eye, nodded and with a kick, knocked the power cell onto the exposed surface before darting for cover. Just as Enki had instructed, Blake put his own cell quickly into place. 

Sentinel’s response was equally swift. He felt its coming before he saw it. The slightest lifting of the hair on the back of his neck, a static charge that grew until Sentinel appeared itself. It hung over the exposed power cell, its swirling insides agitated into a frenzy of angry storm clouds at the presence of the intruder. From its heart suddenly broke a bolt of silver light that slammed into the cell and ripped it to shreds.

The explosion was blinding. With shards of twisted metal thudding into the rock surface behind him, Blake grabbed his own power cell and held it to him. The indicator was barely registering a charge. Just enough to power the communicators for one precious attempt at escape.

First they had to evade Sentinel. Holding his breath, pressed tight against the boulder, Blake did not dare move a muscle. Sentinel was still there, analysing, scanning, ready to destroy any further threats. Only when his feet stopped tingling was he confident they were safe. The furred creature hopped around the rock and a crouching figure took shape before him as Enki completed his transformation.

“Did it work?” he wanted to know. 

His eyes gleamed when Blake showed him the cell. Enki tried to take it, but Blake held fast. Out of necessity, he had armed this man with all the information he needed to get off this planet. Enki did not need them any more. The cell had become his only bargaining chip. His companion’s smile confirmed that the same thought had crossed his mind.

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I have no choice,” said Blake.

The smile faded. Enki rose, unfurling like a newborn leaf in shades of green and brown, his face changing, the hair curling, until Blake was staring at a mirror image of himself. Blake tried to get to his feet, only for Enki to push him back to the ground. 

“Look at you,” Enki said scornfully. “A despicable and pathetic species. You lie, you kill, you destroy, and you consider this to be your greatest strength.”

“We are not all like that,” said Blake, coughing on the dust his rough landing had disturbed. “Some of us try to make a difference.”

“For your own people, perhaps. Where were you when they destroyed _my_ people?”

“We did not know. Now we do, we will do everything in our power to help you.”

Enki straightened his back and towered over him. “I do not need your help. Your _Liberator_ is the most powerful ship in the galaxy, so you tell me. I shall take your place. Your crew will follow my orders.”

“And what of us?”

The metamorph’s gaze fell upon him. “You will stay here. It is a better fate than the one to which my people were condemned. Now, give me the power cell.”

He held out his hand. Blake clutched to his chest all the tighter.

“Don’t make me take it from you,” said Enki.

“I know my own strength,” said Blake defiantly. 

“So you do.” Blisters started to form on Enki’s skin, each popping to reveal scales that expanded to cover the growing frame until a giant humanoid reptilian with glistening teeth stood over him. “But do you know the strength of a Tyrannian?”

The creature reached for him. Blake tried to push backwards out of its grasp. Too slow, he was unable to resist when it grabbed the cell and wrenched it from his arms. Then, with a final swipe of its club-like hand, it struck him around the face and sent him sprawling on his back. Blake tasted blood in his mouth.

“Don’t do this,” he called out as Enki walked away, changing back into his imposter image.

“It is little enough for the lives your species have taken. Why should I care what happens to you?” His reflection paused, head bowed. “And yet,” he said slowly, “because I am not you, I do care. Cally's people have done nothing to me. She does not deserve to die here. Yet if I take her with me, she will know I am not you. For that reason, I cannot leave you.”

He retraced his steps to where Blake lay and held out his hand in an offer of reconciliation. Blake accepted and found himself being pulled to his feet to stare into unfamiliar eyes, scarred by the sight of a thousand wounds.

“You will keep your word, Blake,” said Enki. “If you betray me―”

“I wouldn’t do that. I can’t make it right, but I can try to make it better.”

Enki pressed the power cell back into Blake’s hands. “An act of faith,” he said. “Don’t disappoint me.”

The descent should have been easier. Slipping, sliding, running and tumbling, they should have been back on level ground in half the time it had taken to climb it. Instead, Blake had counted every painful step down that incline in his struggle to retain control. Dehydration had taken its toll. Under the fierce heat of the sun, Blake was no longer sweating. Woozy, light-headed, his balance failed somewhere on the way down and it had taken the support of Enki’s arm to help him complete the journey.

The thirst was like nothing Blake had ever known before. Saliva, thick like mud, coating his mouth, and his throat, parched like the baked earth beneath his stumbling feet. Hunger too, coming in waves with a sensation like his stomach was trying to digest itself. All the while, a brisk pulse hammered in his head. The battle was being lost.

And when Enki left him alone on the steps of the ship while he fitted the power cell in place, Blake’s gaze fell on Cally, sitting in the long grass, singing to herself. She saw him and smiled, holding out her hands to him. Instinctively, he rose and began to go to her. Only Enki’s hand on his shoulder held him back.

“Later,” his companion said smoothly. “She is in danger. We must make her safe first.”

“Yes,” Blake whispered hoarsely. “What must we do?”

“Come with me.”

He allowed himself to be led into the heart of the ship. Amidst the rust and dust, a single panel of lights were illuminated.

“The message must be brief,” Enki explained. “The charge will soon be spent.” 

Blake watched dumbfounded as this strange creature with his face and his voice fiddled with the device. Meaningless actions for incomprehensible reasons. His gaze kept being pulled back to the open hatch. Sweet breezes, intoxicated with the scent of flowers, and Cally, somewhere beyond, calling his name over and over. But she sounded different now, her tone deeper, the words framed as a question rather than an entreaty.

A hand grasped his shoulder and shook him. He pulled himself back to the present. A man was there, a long thin device, coiled and wired, in his hand. A not unpleasant face, one given to good humour, except now it was etched with concern.

“Blake?” Vila was saying. “What’s the matter?”

“They are unwell,” Enki replied. Hands raised, he had reverted to the appearance of the withered old man they had first encountered.

“So you say,” Vila retorted. “How do I know you haven’t done this?” He rounded on him, weapon raised. “You tell me what you’ve done to them right now or you’ll be sorry.”

“Blake,” Enki called. “Blake! Keep your promise!”

The words were slow to come. A remnant not smothered by poison and confusion whispered memories of a distant past and made him speak.

“He’s with us,” he said faintly. 

Vila released a sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear that. I didn’t want to shoot a nice old fellow like that. He reminds me of my grandfather. Well, not quite my grandfather, but someone’s grandfather.” He paused. “Where’s Cally?”

Blake nodded to the door. “Out there.”

“I’ll get her, shall I?”

“She is unwell,” said Enki. “Pay no heed to her words.”

Vila looked at him uncertainly. “Right. Here, put this bracelet on. One for you too, Blake.” When he was slow to respond, Vila clamped it around his wrist. “Where’s Avon and Jenna?”

“They are not here. We must come back for them,” said Enki. “Now we must leave.”

Vila bristled. “Oh, you’re giving the orders now, are you?”

“Yes. Because your friend cannot. Hurry!”

Vila did not argue and scurried out. When he returned, it was with Cally, his arm around her waist, stopping her from running back to the flower meadows. She was fighting him all the way, pushing and punching, much to Vila’s chagrin. Only when her eyes lit upon Blake did her struggles stop. She ran to him and clung to him in fear, hands caressing his face, trying to elicit a response that would not come.

“What have you done to him?!” she demanded, eyes blazing. “I will kill you if you have harmed him!”

“Nice to see you too, Cally,” said Vila, rubbing his jaw. “What’s the matter with her?”

“They are lost,” said Enki. “They are bound to this planet.”

“Then how are we going to get them back to the _Liberator_?”

“If you will permit me.”

So saying, Enki began to transform. Vila watched with widening eyes as the old man grew in stature, the sunken contours of his face filling and the white hair browning and lifting into tight curls until he had become Blake.

“Cally,” he called gently, extending his arms to her. “Come to me.”

She looked from one to the other in utter confusion. At Enki’s prompting, she detached herself from Blake and went to him. He caught her, held her close and snapped the bracelet around her wrist.

“Take us to your ship,” Enki commanded.

Vila gulped. “Yes, I think I’d better. Gan,” he said into his bracelet. “Teleport. And do it quick. It’s too weird for me down here!”


	11. Sons and Lovers

Avon vanished for the rest of the afternoon. Jenna had heard the door slam while she was changing and had returned to find an empty room. As the time dragged on, it was evident he was not coming back. So much for getting out together, she thought. At the first opportunity, he had left her. If that was the case, she would have to make her own plans. As soon as night came, she too would leave. Let them try to catch her.

Then, with dusk drawing in and the shadows lengthening, Avon returned. He came in, letting the door bang in his wake, startling her from a light sleep. She sat up quickly as he came to rest at the side of the bed and stared down at her.

“I need food,” he said.

Jenna propped herself up on her elbows to take in his face, shrouded as it was by the gloom. In his absence, he had shaved and changed into the loose grey tunic and trousers provided by the community. Out of familiar surroundings and clothes, he looked different. If not for his eyes, pink with tiredness, she would not have recognised him. The eyes, she reflected, never changed, whatever was happening behind them. Under their scrutiny, she had the feeling of being pinned down, like one of the hooked fishes left to bake out in the sun on the drying racks. 

“Which Avon am I talking to this time?”

“A hungry one. Give me a pouch.”

“Swap you for water.”

He grudgingly threw a water pouch at her and snatched the food packet from her hand. Jenna watched as he tore it open and began devouring the contents like a starving animal. Finishing before she had had a chance to take a drink, he returned, hand outheld.

“Another,” he demanded.

Jenna held his gaze. “Where have you been?”

“I was with Merek. I thought you needed the space.”

The implication made her bristle. “That’s strange,” she said accusingly. “I don’t recall it being entirely my fault.”

“Let us not become confused about what is happening here,” Avon retorted. “We are under the influence of Sentinel. Well, I am.”

“So am I,” she shot back.

“To a certain extent.”

“Meaning?” Avon did not reply. She sighed, the slow breath carrying away some of her annoyance. That she had been so obvious was irritating, but since he knew anyway, there was little point in denying it. “Yes, I know what you mean. It’s been a while, that’s all. A ban on relationships works on set journeys, but not ones where you never know where it will end. I thought it didn’t matter, not after the London. Being here has made me think differently. I hadn’t planned on spending the rest of my life alone.” Avon’s prolonged silence was not helping. Standing there, quietly judging, hands loosely clasped before him, she could imagine what he was thinking. She got up to meet him on his own level. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this you. You aren’t interested.”

“Perhaps that is the reason.” He let the thought lie. “I meant what I said, Jenna.”

“Don’t worry, Avon. It won’t be happening, not if you were the last man on Jocasta.”

He had the gall to smile. “Given the age of the others here, it may come to that.”

She took out a food pouch and threw it at him. He caught it and ripped the strip from the top. There it was again, that same ravenous hunger, and the feeling there was something Avon was not telling her.

“You shouldn’t eat that so quickly,” she said. “It will make you―”

Avon suddenly gagged and ran to the side room.

“Sick,” Jenna finished.

She waited by the curtain until the sounds of retching had subsided. When Avon emerged, wiping his mouth and looking ashen, she offered him her water pouch. Jenna let him rinse out his mouth before pressing further. 

“Are you going to tell me?” she asked.

“About what?”

It was her turn to give him the silent treatment.

“I am losing weight rapidly,” he said.

Jenna shrugged. “We haven’t eaten in a while. It’s to be expected.”

“Ten kilos?”

“Are you sure?” The look he gave her was utterly convincing. “That’s impossible in so short a time.”

“Normally, yes,” he agreed. “Therefore there must have been a change to my metabolism. Another of Sentinel’s delightful modifications.”

“None of the others look emaciated.”

“Sentinel will have compensated. The food must have a higher calorific content. It is also plentiful. Merek told me that there are no seasons here. The crops grow all year round.”

“What else did he tell you?” she prompted.

Avon snorted. “Not much. They know nothing of Sentinel, its source, its limits, save that it provides all they need. That is the extent of their interest.”

“You didn’t raise their suspicions with your questions?”

“I doubt they would understand the concept that someone would want to leave this place.”

“All the same―”

“I was careful,” Avon cut in.

“What now?”

“We stick to the original plan. We have no choice.”

Jenna folded her arms and considered. “Not if we can find Sentinel.”

“It would do us no good even if we could,” Avon replied. “I would not know where to begin.”

“It can’t be that complex.” She caught the slight twitch of his brows. The problem was more fundamental than that. “You don’t remember how to?”

“The extent of my ability at present is whether I can locate an ‘off’ switch. As I say, we have no choice.” 

Jenna studied him. In the half light, the shadows had deepened the hollows of his cheeks and robbed his eyes of their usual bright intelligence. As unpleasant as Avon could be, the thought of him wasting away on Jocasta did not sit well with her.

“Avon, let’s go now,” she urged.

“No.”

“It’s almost dark. They can’t stop us.”

“I’m not leaving.”

His stubbornness was going to be the death of them. If he was testing her, then she needed to prove her resolve.

“I am. Without you, if necessary.” She went to the door and opened it. Raindrops, falling from a grey velvet sky, barred the way. “You could have mentioned it,” she said, turning back to him.

“You didn’t ask.”

“Do you think Sentinel knows about our plans?”

“There was a disturbance in the upper atmosphere earlier,” he said. “The _Liberator_ , probably. It started to rain soon after.”

A faint hope stirred within her. “Then Blake and Cally are safe. Have they gone?” Avon gave a curt nod. “We have to get to that mountain. They will be waiting for us.”

“Agreed. We wait until it stops raining and then we go. The same precautions apply, Jenna. Because they appear harmless, it does not mean they are. No one is that naïve.”

“Oh, but they are.” 

The voice, coming from the open doorway, made them turn. Devyn was standing there, hair slick with rain, in his hand a Federation assault rifle, muzzle dripping water droplets, levelled straight at them. All pretence of studied grace had been thrown away. Here was a desperate man. Avon instinctively raised his hands. Jenna joined him.

“Good,” said Devyn, grinning maliciously. “You know what this is.”

“Do you?” asked Avon.

Devyn averted the rifle and fired a shot into the corner of the room. “This is freedom,” came the bitter answer. “And your death.”

“I believe you. What now?”

“You come with me.”

“If we say no?” said Jenna.

His grip tightened on the weapon. “I’m not a bad shot. I’ve had plenty of practice. I can take the eye out of bird in flight.” His gaze ranged over her. “It would be a shame to have to damage you. You are pleasing. Now, come here!”

“What would your father say?” Avon interjected.

“Who do you think sent me?” said Devyn. “We were going to poison you tonight at the feast, Avon, but the rain put paid to that. We wanted Jenna to see you die, so that she would no longer love you and accept me instead. My father said I should wait no longer. He said I had to do what must be done.”

“If you expect me to walk meekly to my death―”

Devyn barked a laugh. “That _was_ the plan. I’ve been listening to you. You are not like the others who came to us before. You fooled me at first with your talk of love and kisses. Now I know the truth. You have knowledge. And you hate each other.”

Jenna glanced across at Avon. He was scowling slightly and would not meet her gaze.

“She said not if you were last man on this planet.” His eyes switched to Jenna. “You haven’t got a child, have you?”

“No,” she admitted.

“I thought so,” Devyn said, nodding. “These people will believe anything. I do not. I know things. I’ve _seen_ things. There’s worlds beyond this place, beyond imagining. Have you seen them?”

“Some of them,” Avon said cautiously. “Are you not Merek’s son?”

“In name only!” said Devyn. “Out there, that’s my birthright! I was intended for the stars.” He turned a pleading face on Jenna. “I have seen, in the forest, that those male animals with the most to offer, win the heart of their beloved. Avon is weak, Jenna, he is sick. I can offer you so much more.”

She could feel Avon’s intent gaze upon her. “It doesn’t work like that, Devyn.”

“We can leave this planet and live on a star!”

“Really?” Her curiosity was piqued. “How?”

“I have a ship. We can fly together. But I do not know how.”

“I do,” she said. “Very well, I’m interested. Show me this ship of yours.”

His eyes shone with an eager light. Pulling his rope belt from his tunic, he tossed it to her. “Tie him up. He can stay here. They will need someone to plough and dig and tend their filthy animals.”

“We might need him,” said Jenna. “I haven’t seen your ship yet. I might need a co-pilot to get us off the ground.”

“I can be your co-pilot,” Devyn said eagerly.

“It takes time to learn. Avon comes with us. We can dispose of him once we’re away from here.”

“Thank you, Jenna,” Avon muttered under his breath. “How considerate of you.”

She ignored him. Devyn was giving her proposal thought. 

“Very well,” he said finally. “Tie him up anyway. I don’t like him.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Avon grunted, holding his hands out before him. 

Jenna lightly knotted the cord around his wrists.

“Tighter!” Devyn instructed. “I don’t trust him. He’s got shifty eyes.”

Avon winced as she pulled the cord as tight as it would go.

“Sorry, blame it on those shifty eyes of yours,” Jenna murmured. “Well, Devyn, where’s this ship of yours?”

“Follow me,” he said. “No, you first, Avon.” The left side of his mouth tugged upwards creating a sinister smirk on his face. “Oh, yes, I forgot. You don’t like the rain, do you? That’s how I knew. When it started raining, he ran, Jenna. I’ve seen others, they start like you, they eat, they drink, and they become like my people.”

“But not you,” said Avon.

“I was born here,” said Devyn. “I am immune. Now, out! Here, Jenna, this is for you.” He pulled a large sheet of clear flexible plastic from inside his tunic. “One of the wonders of the star people. It keeps you dry.”

“Yes, wonderful,” said Jenna. To someone who had never seen plastic sheeting before, she supposed it must have been a magical thing.

She pulled it over her head and followed Devyn and Avon out into the damp evening air. Scattered raindrops pattered on the sheet. Avon’s hair began to darken with moisture. Several times he raised his hands to his face to wipe the water from his eyes and mouth.

Skirting the village, Devyn led them out into the forest, where a well-worn path wound its way between the trees. Pitch black beneath the agitated clouds, what little light came from a torch Devyn produced, another looted treasure. Jenna was confident she knew what type of ship he was hiding, confident too of her chances of getting it to fly. There was just Devyn to deal with and Avon, his shoulders black with rain and getting wetter by the minute, in danger of losing what little grip he had left.

“How much further?” Jenna called.

“Almost there,” he returned. He had been saying that for what felt like the last mile or so. It was only when the weak beam of the torch played on a looming ivy-covered mass that Devyn let out a cry of triumph. “There is our star vessel!” he cried. “Did I not promise you a great ship?”

The sense of disappointment was crushing. What had once been a Federation survey ship was choked with vegetation. A gash down its side through which several trees had grown told her that it would never fly again. They had walked with through the rain at gun-point for nothing. Jocasta was determined not to let them go without a fight. Back to Plan A, Jenna thought. As Avon had said, they had no other choice. But first, they had to deal with Devyn.

“It’s impressive,” she said. “Show me inside.”

The interior was better than she had been expecting. Reserve power allowed for dimmed overhead illumination. Several displays blinked with a multi-coloured array of lights. The main scanners had a scrolling readout, registering minimal activity in the surrounding area.

“It is a good ship,” Devyn said, coming up behind her. “Come, I want you to meet my father. You, Avon, stay here. If you try to run, I will shoot you dead.”

He caught her arm and pulled her along with him to the rear of the ship. In one of the private cabins, a skeleton lay in a jumbled mass of bones on the floor. Devyn stooped and carefully rearranged the bones, bestowing special reverence on the skull. Several pieces of the top were missing and the rest of the bone was riven with fractures. This person had met a violent end.

“This is my father,” said Devyn. He turned the face of the skull towards her. “This is Jenna, Father. Is she not like Mother? Very beautiful. I know she was. I have seen her on the screens of this ship. They recorded everything on tapes, you see. Do you know about tapes? They taught me about the stars and other worlds. Now I shall see for myself what I have only watched on screen. And we will do it together, won’t we, Jenna?” 

She nodded. Better not to antagonise him, she decided. He was clearly insane. He still had the rifle and he was blocking the door. 

“Merek loved my mother and she loved my father,” Devyn went on. “Merek killed him and claimed me as his child. Do you see, Jenna, he did what he had to do. As I have done. You understand why I must kill Avon.”

“Yes,” she said, taking a step backwards away from him. “Once we leave, we can throw him out into space.”

Devyn looked confused. “No, we must kill him. We cannot let him live.”

“No one can breathe in space.”

“Ah. That is good. I did not know that.” Devyn smiled serenely at the skull. “Is she not clever, Father? He approves, Jenna. He wishes to give you his kiss.”

He held the skull with its broken cranium and missing teeth out to her. Jenna smacked it from his hand and dashed past him, out into the corridor. Running fast, she could hear Devyn coming up behind her, closing all the time. She made it into the main compartment seconds before he rounded the corner. He took a few steps inside before going down with a low moan as Avon thumped him across the shoulders with a double fist.

“Thanks,” she said, breathlessly. “He was deranged.”

“What gave you the first clue?” Avon replied, stepping over the fallen man. 

He held out his bound hands and Jenna worked at the knot. Finally free, he flexed his fingers and rubbed at his reddened wrists.

“Are you all right?” she asked with concern.

“I’ll live,” he said. “The father?”

“On the skinny side.” Avon shot her a questioning look. “Merek murdered him before Devyn was born. If that’s correct, the power should have run out a long time ago. I need to check something.” She scoured the shelves and computer banks. “Devyn mentioned tapes. Ah, this will do.” 

Locating one, she slid it into place. A younger Merek as a junior officer relaying the daily report appeared on the screen.

“Avon, look,” she said, pointing to the date stamp. “That’s only seven years ago. But Devyn must be... fifty years old?” Her gaze slid over to him. “Didn’t you say your metabolism was being affected?”

He swore under his breath. “Get his weapon and salvage what we can. Let’s get out of here before we die of old age!”


	12. Unforgettable

“It’s not funny, Vila.”

Blake, standing on the flight deck, had been half-listening to the rolling discussion going on around him. The definition of ‘paradise’ from the sound of it, and Vila, opining that having plenty to eat and drink and whatever else was on offer didn’t seem too bad to him. Following it up with speculation that Avon and Jenna might not want to be found had finally riled up Blake’s temper.

Vila crawled back into his shell with a meek apology.

Blake shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, Vila. You’re right. They might want to stay. They might be happy for all we know. But only,” he said, emphasising his point with a sharp look at him, “because they know no better. Paradise is just another prison if you have no choice, however gaudy the bars.”

“I’m sure they’re all right,” said Gan. “They’re both sensible. They’ll manage.”

“It’s not a question of being sensible,” Blake said with a low sigh.

“He’s right,” Vila added. “I mean, Blake’s sensible and look what happened to him. You were raving when we got you back to the ship.”

A fair assessment, Blake thought. Rest, and the clean air and water of the _Liberator_ had gone a long way to restoring calm. Much of what had happened he could not remember. Gaps existed in his memory, things perhaps it was better to forget. Whether temporary or permanent, he could not say, except that it had left him with a sense of dislocation. He could talk about as if it had happened to someone else, whilst at the same time experiencing the sensation that it was deeply personal.

What he did remember in troubling detail was the last time he had seen Avon and Jenna, separated by a barrier, and Jenna’s final words: _“Don’t forget us.”_

Now he stared at the image of Jocasta on the main screen, gnawing at his finger, and willed it to give up its secrets. They were somewhere on that accursed planet. The chances they had found someone like Enki to help them were slim. They would have had to eat and drink in order to survive. They would have succumbed to Sentinel’s drugs and intoxications. They would not be coming back of their own volition.

“I can’t imagine Avon being happy,” Vila mused, as if reading his mind. “It’s like one of those things you hear about but never see. Like baby wargs. I’ve seen plenty of adult wargs, but you never see a baby one, do you? I mean, logic tells you they have to be out there―”

“I’m going down,” said Blake, decisively. He had heard enough of Vila’s flights of fancy to last him a lifetime. Well meant, no doubt, but none of it helping.

Gan stood in his way. “Now wait a minute, Blake. You haven’t recovered fully yourself. You don’t know where they are. That’s a big planet. They could be anywhere.”

“I know in which direction they went.”

He tried to sidestep him. Gan anticipated and blocked his exit. 

“According to Enki, those people are hostile to outsiders,” he said. “What chance do you think you’ll have if they turn on you? What chance will we have if Sentinel turns it attention on us? We barely got away last time.”

From what they had told him, their escape from Jocasta’s force field had not been easy. Three energy banks had been exhausted when the water barrier had solidified around the ship as they had attempted to withdraw. It had been Vila’s idea for a 360 activation of the _Liberator’s_ force wall. Like a bubble, he had said. The tricky bit had calculating the exact thrust and velocity to escape the barrier once the bubble popped. Finally free, they had run and put the _Liberator_ well out of Sentinel’s reach. They were safe. Avon and Jenna were not.

Next time, Blake knew, Sentinel would be ready. Capable of learning, it would adapt. Next time, how many energy banks would they have to sacrifice for the safety of the ship? Next time, and how many more times after, until Sentinel’s defences were able to overpower the _Liberator_ and trap them all on Jocasta? Once, twice at the most. The sensible course of action would have been to go. Blake would never countenance that.

“I’m not leaving them there,” said he.

“I’m not suggesting we do,” Gan replied reasonably. “But let’s not do anything hasty. I say we wait for Cally. If they haven’t fallen under the influence of the planet, she might be able to make contact with them telepathically, tell them where to go to find us. That makes more sense than running in different directions trying to find them.”

“What if they have been affected?”

Gan smiled gently. “We won’t know unless we try.”

Blake nodded. “Very well. How is Cally?”

He had not gone to check on her. After thirty hours of recovery time, his first thought had been for those left behind. Several hours later, he still had not gone to her, telling himself he had to study the results of the orbital scan Zen had conducted when the _Liberator_ had entered Jocasta’s atmosphere. So he kept telling himself, although if he was honest, the lingering memory of Cally in his arms stirred up uncomfortable thoughts of what might have happened.

Distance, he had hoped, would help. Truth was, distance was only making it worse.

“Getting better all the time,” Gan said. 

As he had done with Blake, Gan had locked Cally in her cabin and had left her to let time heal. It had been a good strategy. Away from Jocasta’s poisonous influence, the toxins had begun to clear from their systems naturally. Twelve hours after getting back to the _Liberator_ , Blake knew who he was. After another twelve hours, he knew where he was. Now he knew what he had to do.

“Cally,” he said into the intercom. It took a while for her to answer. When she did, her voice sounded muted. “Are you well enough to join us on the flight deck?”

She said she would be there as soon as she could. Blake braced himself for her arrival. Nothing had actually happened, he told himself, nothing that was not the direct result of Sentinel’s influence. Allowing it to sour their friendship would have been regrettable.

“What of Enki?” he asked while they waited.

“Oh, he’s all right. Zen created a nitrogen atmosphere for him in Inner Hold One, so he’s reverted to his natural state.”

“What’s he like?” asked Vila curiously.

Gan shrugged. “I don’t know. He said he wanted to be left alone.”

“Who can blame him?” said Blake.

“You’d think he want a bit of company after all those years on Jocasta.”

“He does. Just not ours.” He glanced round as Cally entered the flight deck. Where before he might have gone over to her, he kept away. Cally too was reticent. She held back, hovering at the foot of the stairs, refusing to meet his eyes. Words that should have come naturally to him caught in his throat. “How are you feeling now?”

“A little tired.” 

And there it was, thought Blake. A new awkwardness, neither knowing how to dispel it. Better to ignore it, he decided. Better to carry on as though nothing had happened. Especially when he had other, more pressing problems on his mind.

“It’s Avon and Jenna,” he said. “We need to direct them to a location where we can pick them up.”

“That makes sense,” said Cally quietly. 

“I can teleport down and leave them bracelets.”

“Where?”

Blake took a deep breath and considered. “Well, they were heading for the mountains. So that seems the best place.”

“There’s a few of them, according to Zen,” said Gan.

“The biggest,” suggested Vila.

“The tops are hidden by the force field,” said Blake tersely. “How will they know?”

“Some sort of light beacon should do it,” said Gan. “Something they can’t miss.”

Blake nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll see what we’ve got. Cally, in the meantime, do you think you can contact them?”

“We are too far away.” Her reply was stilted, her manner reserved. She was retreating from him all the time. She would do what he asked, Blake did not doubt, but no more. 

“Then we’ll have to get closer,” he said. “Vila, take us back to Jocasta, standard by one half. Stand by to reverse thrust and stop if we attract Sentinel’s attention. We need them back, but let’s not take any chances. Let’s go.”


	13. One More Mountain To Climb

Jenna was watching Avon’s dreams.

Curled up on netting at the other end of the boat, his face betrayed what was playing out in his mind. His eyelids fluttered, his breathing caught, and several times his lips formed words too silent to hear. Dreams of things past, of things that would never be again, to be banished with the coming of consciousness, perhaps forever. They might have been nightmares for all Jenna knew. Whatever they were, they brought him no peace.

Watching him murmur and twitch, she knew she could delay waking him no longer. Having escaped the forest, collected their supplies and taken a boat, Avon had given into exhaustion as soon as they were out of sight of land. The gentle motion of the waves had tried to lull her into sleep a few times. She fought it, telling herself she was better qualified to pilot the boat to the distant mountains, even if she was working on instinct rather than knowledge. Navigation – head in the general direction. Speed – put up the sail and hope for the best. The same principles applied, whether to the _Liberator_ or this primitive wooden craft.

The real reason, if was honest with herself, that she let Avon sleep on was because it was preferable to having him awake. Another soaking had already left its mark. Halfway back to beach, he had forgotten where they were going and where their cache was hidden. Jenna had corrected him every step of the way. Experiencing the progression of his deepening confusion was difficult. And so she let him sleep.

Now with land approaching, she had to wake him. She braced herself against the rolling of the boat and unsteadily made her way over to him. The voice of the planet whispered in her ear how delightful it would be to ease him into wakefulness with a kiss. It told her too that he would readily respond and here under the wide blue skies of Jocasta, with no rules, no Federation, nothing to stop them, that anything was possible. All nature thrilled to the call, from the creatures that played around the boat in the blue waters to the birds that had journeyed with them.

It was the stink of rotting fish that drew her back to her senses. The breeze had carried the stench away from her while she had been at the other end of the boat. This close, it was nauseating. The voice was banished, the veils lifted and there was Avon, sound asleep on the old nets he had made his bed. He had slept long enough. Jenna shook him roughly awake. 

Avon came back to consciousness as though he was ready to fight for his life. “What the hell...?” he snarled.

“We’re almost there,” Jenna said, retreating to her position.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up, squinting against the light reflecting off the waves. “So soon?”

“You’ve been asleep for a while.”

“You should have woken me,” he said ungraciously.

“I didn’t need you.” It came out harsher than she had intended. “It only takes one of us to pilot this boat.”

Avon cast about for their bag of supplies. Predictably, he delved inside, withdrew a food pouch and started to eat. If his shapeless clothes appeared a little looser, Jenna hoped it was only her imagination.

“I heard from Cally,” she said.

Avon gave her an unimpressed look. “You’re hearing things?”

Jenna gave him a moment, hoping he would realise his mistake. “Cally is a telepath,” she said at last.

The silence lingered. “I should know that, should I?” Avon breathed, setting aside his meal.

“You will, once we get out of here.”

“What did this _telepath_ tell you?”

“Blake has left teleport bracelets for us on one of those mountains.”

Avon looked as though he was about to say something, but thought better of it. Jenna realised he had not understood.

“Teleport bracelets will get us back to the ship,” she explained.

“Right.” His tone implied it had not helped. He was accepting what she was telling him unquestioningly. “How do we find these trinkets?”

Jenna sighed. “There’s a light beacon. I can see it. Look up there, Avon, that red glow. That’s where we have to go.”

He followed the direction of her pointing finger. “Halfway up a mountain? He couldn’t leave them nearer to the shore?”

She shook her head. “Something to do with the curvature of the planet. They couldn’t get an accurate reading of the terrain further down.” She saw the doubt in his eyes. “We’ll make it.”

“I’m trusting that you know what you’re talking about,” he replied.

“That must be a novel experience for you.”

“At this point you could tell me anything. I have no way of verifying whether it is the truth.”

“Why would I lie?”

“Everyone lies.”

She held his gaze. “We will get back to the ship,” she said firmly.

“Easier said than done. We have a problem.” He had been rummaging in the supply bag. “There are only three water pouches left.”

“That’s impossible.” She took the bag from him. Three full pouches, as Avon had said, and four empty. “I didn’t have them,” she said.

“The pouches are damaged. Either way, it’s irrelevant. We will need water to get up that mountain, more than we have.”

“We can do it,” said Jenna. “One each and we’ll share the last.”

“It’s not enough,” said Avon heavily.

“There’s something else,” she ventured. This was not going to improve his mood. “We are being followed.” She gestured to the horizon where three sails could just be glimpsed. “You were right.”

“I usually am,” Avon muttered. “We should have killed him.”

Leaving Devyn alive had been at Jenna’s request. Death would have been a release. Spending the rest of whatever remained of his life on Jocasta seemed like adequate punishment.

“They’re a long way off,” said Jenna. “They won’t catch us.”

Avon said nothing. Staring out at the approaching ships, he was absently scratching at his arm.

“It’s infected,” he said, pulling back his sleeve in answer to her question. The clawed letters were red and angry against his pale skin. “I must have caught my arm in the forest.”

“You did that.” His look was stricken. “You don’t remember,” she said. “Sorry.”

He shrugged it away. “Don’t be.” 

He pulled his sleeve back down and grabbed the supply bag. From inside he withdrew the bottle containing the water pills. Taking one out, he cupped in it the palm of his hand.

“Avon, you can’t,” Jenna protested. “Those draw water from the atmosphere. It’s tainted.”

“We have no choice.”

“I won’t let you do it.”

She tried to take it from him. It fell from his grasp and rolled away into the netting. Anger roiled in his eyes as he grabbed her by both arms and pulled her round. 

“Listen to me!” he hissed. “We need water! We will not make it up that mountain without it!”

Lips lightly parted, Avon was breathing hard. Jenna could feel her heartbeat rising to match the pulse she could feel in the fingers clamped around her arms, betraying what they both craved. The world was fast retreating into a blur that was being banished into the far recesses of her mind. All that mattered was his touch and the hot intensity of his gaze, telling of the inferno to come. Only the faintest tightening of the lines around his eyes when her hand brushed his injured arm made her stop.

“Avon, let me go,” she whispered.

“It’s not wrong,” he breathed. “Not if we want it.”

“It depends why we’re doing it.”

“Sentinel.”

“Yes.”

“What if it isn’t?”

Jenna bit her lip. “Tell me who ‘A’ ‘N’ is.”

The question threw him. “I don’t know.”

“Exactly.”

She freed herself from his grasp, leaving him sighing with frustration. Turning his attention back to their immediate concerns, he selected another capsule, broke it in two and dropped it into one of the empty water pouches. Bubbles started to form as the chemical reaction drew moisture from the air. 

“Are you sure there’s no other way?” she said with concern.

“No,” Avon said flatly. “It has to be me, Jenna. I’m almost there anyway.” 

“Why don’t you wait until we get to dry land?”

“I need it now. Besides,” he added, “it will take time to work.” He shook the pouch and the froth began to dissipate. “I don’t know how this is going to affect me. If I become _difficult_ ,” he said with emphasis, “leave and come back for me.”

“I won’t do that. I can handle you.” 

“Don’t be a fool. I will slow you down.”

She rounded on him. “Look, when I leave this planet, I’ve got no intention of coming back. If I leave you behind, they’ll kill you, Avon, and... and I don’t like the thought of that. I don’t like to lose.”

“Have you finished?” he said.

“Yes. Avon,” she added earnestly. “I will get us home.”

He nodded. Lifting the pouch to his lips, he paused for a moment before drinking the contents. Jenna was conscious of staring him, waiting as if she expected the change to be visible.

“How was it?”

“Fine,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”

Fine did not last long. He was still with her when they landed the boat, gathered the supplies and started up the incline. The change was gradual, starting with times when he stopped and turned to survey the scene of the blue shining waves and the boats drawing ever closer to the shore. She noticed it too when he grabbed handfuls of berries from bushes growing on the lower slopes and offered them to her. When his arms slid around her waist when she paused to take a drink and watch the villagers gather on the beach below, she knew she had lost him.

“It’s beautiful here,” he whispered in her ear. “Let us stay.”

“No.” She shook him off. “We have to keep going.”

“Why? What is there here for us? Let’s go back to the settlement.”

These gentle, constant attempts to sway her was his idea of being difficult. Since the transformation had bound him to the planet, Jenna decided she had to change tack.

“There is something up here our people need,” she stated. “We must find it for them.”

Avon accepted without argument. He followed obediently after that, pausing when she did to check on the progress of their pursuers. They were gaining on them all the time. Avon had been right about slowing her down.

He had been right too about the water. The higher they climbed, the greater the exertion and the more she had needed to drink. The last of the pouches had been used long before they reached the glowing beacon. Avon had his water capsules, each one compounding his altered state. Weak and dizzy, Jenna had had to force herself to scramble through loose rocks and rubble before coming upon a familiar red and white box. Inside was food, water and two precious teleport bracelets. She almost cried with relief, except she had no tears to shed.

She downed the water and snapped a bracelet around her wrist. “Avon,” she called to him. “Put on your bracelet. Let’s get out of here.”

He was not listening. Standing on an outcrop with a clear view down the mountainside, he was smiling broadly. “Our people have arrived,” he said.

Jenna joined him. The main group were about one hundred feet below with Devyn slightly ahead. She was in time to see him raise a rifle and aim it at them. She pulled Avon out of range as a shot went wild. Broken rocks rattled down the slopes, prompting cries of alarm from the villagers.

“Have we offended them?” Avon asked as she dragged him out of sight of the edge.

“Oh, you could say that.”

“Then we should apologise.”

“You’d be wasting your breath,” said Jenna, holding him back. “Put this on.” 

She tried to force the bracelet onto his wrist. He resisted, instead grabbing her arm and pulling her to him. “Let us declare our love, Jenna,” said Avon. “Let them be our witnesses.”

“Let’s not.” She unravelled herself from his embrace. “You’re a nuisance. Do you know that?”

“But I love you.”

“That’s what they all say.” She activated her communicator. “ _Liberator_ , this is Jenna. Are you there? Come in _now_!”


	14. Whatever It Takes

Blake was first to the teleport section when the communicator chimed. Vila was pushed out of the way and Gan was left trailing in his flight to get there. He had stabbed at the button and opened the channel before he had fully stopped running.

“Jenna!” he yelled into the device. “Are you all right? Is Avon with you?”

It had been a long wait. Since Cally had been able to confirm that she had successfully communicated with Jenna, there had been hope. And then the blow. She had felt nothing from Avon. Blake had immediately thought the worst. There were several possibilities, Cally had said. She searched for the familiar, she tried to explain, at which point Vila’s eyes glazed over. If Avon had fallen under Jocasta’s spell, his mind would be unfamiliar. It would be like searching for a single star in an infinite galaxy.

She had meant well, but Blake had found the prospect anything but reassuring. Avon being compromised presented a range of scenarios, each more troubling than the last. Had he gone and left Jenna to fend for herself? Why had he succumbed, while Jenna was unaffected? If they had become separated, how were they to find him?

In the hours of waiting after teleporting down to the mountainside, concern had gnawed away at him. With the mood on the flight deck already tense, everyone was keeping their distance. He tried to temper his irritation by telling himself nothing was to gained with pointless speculation. Still, Vila felt the sharp edge of his tongue after one unhelpful comment too many and Gan’s attempts to keep the peace only served to make him feel worse for letting his control slip. He took to prowling, trying to stay as near to the teleport section as other duties would allow. When the waiting was finally over, he was ready for it.

“We’re all right,” came Jenna’s voice through the communicator. She sounded muffled and faint, as though she was whispering.

Blake breathed again. His relief was palpable. “Teleporting you now.”

Jenna was quick to stop him. “Avon’s not himself. He won’t put on a bracelet. Blake, I need you to come down and get him.”

He grimaced. It was out of the question. The second time they had descended into the atmosphere, Sentinel had adapted. The barrier had solidified the moment the _Liberator_ had reached optimum height. The drain on the force wall had been immense. Blake had been down and back from the mountain in a matter of minutes, but even that short delay, coupled with the energy needed to escape, had consumed two-thirds of the power reserves.

Instinct struggled with logic as he tried to think what to do. Only when he saw the look on Vila’s face and Gan slowly shaking his head did the impulse to go straight down to help her subside.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “Jenna, we will have seconds to bring you up and get out before the energy banks are drained.” He released a long, uneasy breath. “Are you in any immediate danger?”

“We are being followed. They’re close.”

“Do whatever it takes to get that bracelet on him.” He took a moment, hating what he had to say. “If you can’t, then you’ll have to leave him. Do not take any risks.”

“I can’t do that,” Jenna replied. “They want to kill him.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

The channel went dead. Blake took out his frustration on the console. The residual pain in his hand was nothing compared to the churning of his guts.

“I should have known it would be Avon causing trouble,” said Vila with a rueful smile. “He could have a row with his own reflection. He’d probably win too.”

“Jenna will do it,” said Gan calmly.

Blake glanced up at him. “I hope so. If not, we’ve lost him.”

* * * * * * *

Jenna had been keeping a hold on Avon’s sleeve. 

While she had been talking to Blake, he had been trying to edge away, eager to join the approaching crowd, blind to their rampant hostility. They were drawing nearer all the time. Somewhere below, Devyn was calling their names. Nowhere to hide, he was shouting. 

That much was true. On the ridge where Blake had left their bracelets, one small outcrop of rocks was giving them shelter. Once Devyn arrived, he would have no difficulty finding them. If he needed to look at all. Every time Avon heard his name, he tried to stand up. It was becoming harder to stop him every time.

As much as Jenna understood Blake’s reasoning, the sense of abandonment was galling. The faith he had in her resourcefulness was scant comfort compared to what she might have to do. Leaving Avon behind, if it came to that, would ultimately be her decision, whatever sanction she had from Blake. That would be hard, knowing his likely fate.

Do whatever it takes, Blake had said. Easier said than done, she thought. Getting the bracelet on him in his current mood would mean wrestling him to the ground. Days compressed into hours might have given him a decent growth on his chin and had whittled his cheekbones into sharp definition, but even in this weakened state, Jenna did not rate her chances. He was going to resist her all the way.

Whilst she was deliberating, another call from Devyn made her glance from behind the safety of the rock. He had sounded worryingly close. When he breached the ridge, their time would be up. When that happened, she would have to use the rifle to defend their position until the _Liberator_ arrived. Sitting back, she found Avon with the weapon in his hand, examining it as though it was an exotic specimen. Then to her horror, he threw it carelessly away. Metal clattered on bare rock as it slithered down the slope out of their grasp.

“We have no need for meaningless trinkets,” Avon said, soothing away her protests with the brush of his fingers on her lips. “We have each other.”

The sad thing was that he believed it, Jenna thought. His eyes were different when he said it, softer those those of the Avon she knew, robbed of their anger and loathing and lingering contempt. These were the eyes and gentle voice of one loved deeply. It ached to recall how long it had been since anyone had looked at her like that.

“I wish I was recording this,” Jenna muttered under her breath. “Because no one is ever going to believe me when you get back to normal.”

Avon’s head suddenly whipped round. Devyn was shouting again. He had to be just a few feet below the ridge.

“Jenna!” he was calling. “I will spare Avon’s life if you come to me!”

“Our people have come,” Avon insisted, trying to rise. She held him back. “We should go to them.”

“That’s a very bad idea.” She took a deep breath. What to try? “Avon, look at me,” she said, drawing his attention back to her. “I want you to put on this bracelet.”

“I have no need of it,” he said, pushing it aside.

“Sentinel wants you to wear it.”

“Sentinel provides.” Jenna looked at him closely. He sincerely believed what he was saying. It was as though his sense of self-preservation had been sucked out, leaving an empty vessel behind. “Sentinel wants us to be happy.”

“You can make me happy,” she said. “Wear this for me.”

He took it from her and dropped it on the floor. Before it rolled out of reach, Jenna quickly retrieved it. 

“All we need is each other,” he whispered. His hand caressed her cheek, the fingers coming to rest below her ear. “Let us not waste another moment. Kiss me.”

The sound of feet scuffing on rock. Harsh breathing. A flurry of pebbles skidding in their direction. Devyn was here. Whatever it takes, Jenna thought.

“You are going to owe me for this, Avon.” Activating her communicator, she had one chance to get them both to safety. “ _Liberator_ , now!

As he drew nearer to close his lips on hers, she clamped the bracelet around his wrist. Startled, he stared at the thing imprisoning him and tried to pull his hand free. Jenna closed her fingers over it to stop him. Above, the sky was darkening. Spots of rain were starting to fall. They were coming. A few seconds more and they would be back on the ship. A few seconds to distract him.

She closed her eyes and tasted the raindrops on his mouth. Water ran down her face to where their lips met. Avon stopped resisting and kissed her back, softly at first, then firmly as around them the world changed. The light was brighter, the air tinged with a faint static charge and the hum of a flight system powering up. Jenna opened her eyes and they were back.

“We’ve got them,” she heard Blake saying. “Get us out of here, Cally!”

As she pulled away, Avon’s features began to register his confusion. He was not going to understand. Eventually he would, but for now he was going to react badly. It felt strangely like a betrayal, even it if had saved his life.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Only now did he begin to notice, taking in his surroundings at first with awe, then alarm. Before he could react, Jenna backed quickly away, out of his reach. Blake was there to help her up. 

“Well done,” he said. “Unorthodox, maybe.”

“You did say whatever I had to do.”

“How bad is he?”

“He’s gone.”

Blake nodded. “We’ll deal with him. Avon, it’s all right,” he said, approaching him slowly. “You’re home. You’re safe.”

Avon was still on his knees. Seeing Blake coming towards him, he was up on his feet in an instant, retreating until the rear panels of the teleport bay were pressing into his back. Trapped, his options were limited: run or come out fighting. Either way, it was going to be ugly. Jocasta was not going to let him go easily.

Jenna put the teleport console between herself and the others. Vila saw what she was doing and hurried round to join her. 

“Gan and Blake can handle him,” he said by way of excuse. “I’ll only get in the way.”

“Who are you?” Avon was shouting.

Blake gestured for Gan to stop. “Avon, it’s us.” 

“I don’t know you,” came the grating reply. His hands were balling into fists. “Jenna, don’t trust them!”

“It’s all right,” she called to him. She was fighting the impulse to rush to his side and defend him. Just Sentinel, she told herself. Just a chemical imbalance that needed to be corrected. Then the feelings would go away. “They are here to help us. These are our friends, Avon.”

He shook his head furiously. “These are not our people! They mean us harm.”

“I know this is confusing,” Blake tried again. “You have to trust us.”

“Has he forgotten who he’s talking to?” said Vila.

Jenna ignored him. “Blake, be careful,” she called. Weakened though Avon was, he was boiling with rage, ready to take it out on the nearest foe. If it came to blows, someone was going to be hurt.

“Jenna, come here!” Avon called to her. “We have to leave. We have to go home.” When she did not move, he turned his growing anger back to Blake. “What have you done to her?”

“Now, Avon, everything is going to all right,” Gan said. His smile was forced as he started to approach him again. “You need to come with us. You’re tired. You need to rest.”

Avon retreated further, as if expecting the wall to swallow him up.

“Gan, don’t crowd him,” warned Blake.

“We can’t reason with him,” said Gan. “We certainly couldn’t reason with you, Blake, so let’s get this over with.” He started forward again. Avon was breathing hard, fingers turning white as the nails bit into the flesh of his palms. “You’re not going to be difficult, are you, Avon? That would be foolish when there’s only one of you and there’s two of us. So why don’t you come with us and we’ll make you feel better?”

With nowhere left to go, Avon suddenly saw his chance and tried to bolt between them. Too slow, two pairs of hands grabbed at his arms. The force of his momentum carried them on. Bracelets tumbled down as all three crashed into the rack. With the combined weight of Blake and Gan landing full on Avon’s back, he had the wind knocked out of him. The respite was temporary, for when Blake tried to pin his hands, Avon’s elbow flew back and caught him in the face. 

Knocked backwards, Blake had to leave it to Gan to wrestle Avon’s arm up behind his back. Avon tried to squirm out of his grasp only to be grabbed by the scruff of his neck and rammed upright against the wall. The fight should have been over. Still he would not give up. Restrained as he was, his voice was free and he gave it full vent.

“Let go of me!” he was snarling. “You will not keep us here!”

“You don’t want to go back down there,” said Gan. Avon tried to find leverage with his free arm only to be thumped harder against the wall. “From what Jenna tells me, they were not nice people.”

“Jenna!” Avon shouted. “Do not listen to them. They are deceiving you!”

The siren call of Jocasta thrilled within her to his desperate entreaties. A weapon had been left on the console. Her fingers stole unwillingly to it. _Take it_ , the voice was telling her. _Kill them and come home_.

“No, I will not do it,” she whispered back. With difficulty, she pushed the weapon aside. Avon was still shouting. The feelings were beginning to overwhelm her. “I wish he would stop,” she said louder.

Gan obliged by forcing Avon’s arm higher up his back. “That’s enough!” he said firmly. “You’re upsetting Jenna. And if you upset her, then you upset me. You don’t want to do that, do you?”

Another warning jerk of his arm brought silence. The tension slowly released from Avon’s shoulders as he finally accepted defeat.

“That’s better,” said Gan. The exertion had brought a glow to his face. If he was enjoying himself a little too much, Jenna did not blame him. It had not been so long ago that their positions had been reversed. “Don’t you worry about him, Jenna. He’ll be back to normal once he’s got this out of his system.”

“That’s a shame,” said Vila unhappily. “Can’t we have an improved version?”

“Actually, I think I prefer the old Avon,” said Jenna.

“You would say that.” Vila gave her a cheeky grin. “Mind you, that didn’t look so bad from where I was standing. If you ever want to save me like that...”

“In your dreams.”

His reply was lost in a rolling tide of cold, undefinable terror that suddenly swept through her. The world spun. She grabbed at the console for support to steady herself. An arm encircled her shoulder and she found herself looking up into Blake’s concerned face. A trickle of blood had run from his nose and settled at the side of his mouth.

“Something’s wrong,” she managed to get out. “I lost something, I think. A memory. It was there and suddenly it vanished.” Her trembling hand went to her brow. “Tell me this isn’t permanent.”

“It isn’t,” he said consolingly. “Cally and I had the same experience. It returns.”

“Eventually,” said Vila.

“You were as badly affected as Avon?” Jenna asked Blake.

Behind him, Vila was mouthing something. Blake smiled ruefully. “He’s trying to tell you that I was raving. I deny it.”

Vila nodded emphatically. “Eight hours of shouting and yelling once we split them up,” he said. “We didn’t know what to do with them.”

“I’m not sure I can listen to him for that long,” she said.

“Agreed,” said Blake. “We’re going to let Avon sleep this off. Vila, go and get a medical kit.”

“That might not work,” said Jenna. “He said he had lost a lot of weight. Something about the planet causing metabolic changes? He might not last eight hours.”

“Then we’ll get some fluids into him and flush it out of him faster.” Blake gave her a gentle smile as Vila scuttled away. “He’ll be fine.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about. Are you all right?”

He wiped the drying blood from his mouth. “If a bloodied nose is the worst I ever get from Avon, I’ll be happy. Now, how about you?”

“I’ll manage,” she said. “I wasn’t affected like this until the rain got in my mouth just before you pulled us out. I’m feeling... confused, that’s all.”

“I did wonder.”

There had been an indirect question in his reply that was gently seeking an answer. “We found supplies in a wrecked ship,” she explained. “They were almost gone by the time we got to that mountain. That’s when Avon let me have what was left, while he...” She bit her lip. “I wouldn’t have got away from that place without him.”

“Nor he without you. Not you will ever get him to admit that.” He gave her that well-worn smile she knew so well. “Go and rest, Jenna. You’re going to feel very strange for a while. It will pass now we’re away from the planet.”

“I should help Cally,” Jenna said, trying to shake the fog from her mind. “If I can remember how.”

“Cally can cope.” Blake tried to guide her towards the stairs. “Let us deal with it.”

Jenna resisted. Her gaze kept being pulled back to Avon, still held in Gan’s grasp. The need to stay and help him was going stronger every minute. A good reason for _not_ staying, she told herself. “You’re right,” she admitted at last. “I’ll be in my cabin if you need me.”

Blake nodded. “And you know where we are if you need us.”

She permitted herself one final look at Avon before she left. It was a mistake. He had been listening and watching as far as Gan would allow. Eye contact was made and she knew what he was about to do. Rendered powerless by the spell of Jocasta, she stood transfixed.

“I will not let you take her!” he shouted. This time, Gan was not going to silence him. “Sentinel! Hear me. Help us!”

Rising panic within her gave way to complete serenity. The feeling was overwhelming and sickening. 

“Blake, stop him,” she managed to get out. He was at her side again, offering support. “I think... I think Sentinel is coming.”

Gan’s response was to grab Avon by the hair and thump his head against the wall. He went down without another word.

“Too late,” said Jenna. Her heart was pounding so fast, it felt as though it was about to force its way through her chest. “It’s almost here.”

Blake ran to the intercom. “Cally, are we out of range of the planet?”

“Not yet,” she replied. “The energy banks were almost completely drained when we teleported Avon and Jenna.”

“Just keep going. We think Avon has summoned Sentinel.”

“But how...? Wait. We are receiving a signal from Jocasta. It’s the same as before.”

He swore under his breath. “Get out of there, Cally. Go now!”

“Blake, it’s here.”

“Hide! It’s come for Avon.”

There was a long silence before she answered. “I’m all right,” came her voice at last. “It’s headed in your direction.”

“Damn!” said Blake. “Cally, keep us going. Shut down all other systems, life support if necessary, and get all power diverted to the main drives.” He flicked the intercom off. “Jenna, get behind that console. You too, Gan.” He was about to drag Avon out of sight when Blake stopped him. “No, leave him where he is. Sentinel is looking for him.”

“We can’t let that thing take him again,” Gan protested. 

“We have no choice. Sentinel can kill. If it sees you as a threat to Avon, it will protect him.” He took the weapon from the console and plugged in the connector. “We can use him as a decoy. While Sentinel is distracted, I’ll use this.”

“Will it work?” said Jenna.

“I don’t know. Let’s try anyway.”

A long howl sounded from the corridor. Vila ran into view and skated down the steps. “That thing’s on board again!” he wailed. “It’s after me!”

“Everyone, hide!” Blake ordered.

He pulled Jenna in behind him as he took over behind the teleport console. Vila slotted into the gap on the other side whilst Gan took cover behind the bracelet rack. There was not long to wait. A faint hum grew ever louder and the smell of an electrostatic charge tinged the air. As it drew nearer, Jenna had to fight the urge to answer its call with everything she had.

And then it appeared. Jenna peeped out from her hiding place to see the great grey sphere hanging above the steps before slowly floating down to hover over Avon. As it lingered over him, Blake took aim and fired.

The shot made no impact on Sentinel’s surface. Instead it disintegrated into a thousand sparks that flew across the teleport bay in a dazzling pyrotechnic display that lit tiny flames on all it touched.

Sentinel began to darken internally, storm clouds illuminated by flashes of light. 

“It’s powering up,” said Blake. “Let’s get out of here, _now_!”

Too late, even as they made for the exit, Sentinel moved to intercept them. The lightning was intensifying. Blake put himself in front of the others, only to Jenna to push him aside.

“It won’t hurt me,” she said. “Sentinel, it’s me you want.”

“No, Jenna!” Blake tried to stop. “We’ll never get you back.”

“I know. Better that than we all die.” She pulled his restraining hand from her arm. “Sentinel, I am here. I am ready to go home.”

The agitated clouds settled to an insipid grey. Jenna braced herself, closing her eyes, knowing what was to come next. The only comfort was that she would be spared the memory of all she had lost and content instead with what had been provided. And all the while Sentinel looked on, unmoving. Why was it waiting, she wondered?

“Look at that,” said Vila. “It’s cracking up.”

He was right. Spider-fine lines were running across the sphere, deepening into cracks that began to split its once-smooth surface. The closer she looked, it seemed to Jenna that the clouds were solidifying.

“We must be almost out of range,” Blake murmured. “Move back.”

The explosion, when it came, was violent. Sentinel died in a blinding flash that shook the _Liberator_. For a moment, it seemed as though it would take the ship with it. All went dark, save for the fires that had started at every electrical point. When the lights came back on, the floor was littered with blocks of ice, from the size of a fist to the diameter of a pebble, each bleeding from the heat into gathering pools.

Slowly, smoke-smudge and singed, Blake cautiously approached. Dabbing his fingers in one of the puddles, he inspected the liquid.

“Water,” he said. “The same composition as the barrier.”

“Who cares?” Vila called, from the safety of his hiding place. "Is it dead? That's all I want to know!"

“Yes.” Blake nodded. “It’s over.”


	15. Paradise Lost

Sleep did not come easily. 

Jenna had fallen into her bed, physically exhausted, but her mind had given her no rest. Whirling thoughts, tumbling over and over, made for a restless night. After several hours of tossing and turning, she was finally forced to find an escape from the noise.

Relief came with a sedative that brought peaceful oblivion for a full eighteen hours. When she awoke, it was to a world she knew. A clear unbroken line ran in her memories from childhood to the present day. All was there, the sometimes good and the often bad. It was a comfort. Even the things she wished she could forget were intact. Better than the alternative, she told herself.

As Blake had said, it would pass. 

Other things, however, might not be so easily remedied. 

Back on the _Liberator_ , it was hard to believe what had happened on Jocasta. At a distance, it felt like it had happened to someone else, while she had been relegated to the role of observer. She wished it had. Bad enough that the planet had tried to break their will; that it had happened with Avon made it worse. If doing whatever it took to get them both home had been permissible, then what had occurred between them in the settlement was something else. 

Pheromones, fear, attraction, a combination of all three – whatever the cause, it had happened. Now her concern was what Avon intended to do about it. Not follow through, she was certain of that. His contempt had been stinging about any suggestion of a relationship. For her part, she had armed with the information he needed to make her life difficult. Feelings she would have to deny or bluff out. Either way, it was a conversation that would have to be handled with care.

And hopefully not too soon. The _Liberator_ was in its night phase and the corridors were empty. With the crisis over, the others had gone to their beds. Their absence was welcome, if only for a while. A feeling of dislocation remained that needed time alone to banish. Relieving whoever was on watch would give her that opportunity before the daily routine resumed.

It was a hope that disappeared when she saw Cally coming in the other direction. Jenna put a forced smile on her disappointment. Not Cally’s fault, she told herself. From what Blake had said, their own experience had been equally unpleasant. To be back on the ship and safe was one thing, but was all well? Not from the way Cally immediately averted her eyes and tried to slip by without engaging.

“Cally,” Jenna called to her. She stopped but did not turn round. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Her response was lacklustre. “Why should I not be?”

It was a challenge rather than a reply. Jenna let it pass. It would take a while to heal the wounds of Jocasta. “You handled the ship well back there. You got us away just in time.”

“Zen did most of the work.”

Cally bowed her head and continued walking.

“Where’s Blake?” Jenna asked before she got too far away.

Reluctantly, Cally came to a halt again. Jenna noticed from the uneven rise and fall of her shoulders that she was struggling with some deep-rooted distress. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I haven’t seen him.”

“How’s Avon?” Jenna tried again.

“You’ll have to ask Blake. He locked me out of the medical unit.”

There was an edge to her voice that had not been there before. Whatever Blake’s reasons, Cally had taken it personally. 

“Avon wasn’t himself,” Jenna said. “Blake probably thought he could handle him.”

“Better than I could?” This time, Cally did turn. Her expression was one of sadness and confusion. “I don’t blame him, Jenna. He no longer trusts me.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true.”

“When he needed me, I let him down.” She could not meet Jenna’s eyes. “I should have been his support. Instead, I was weak. I said things, Jenna, I did things. I had impulses I was unable to control.”

“We all did. Blame it on Sentinel.”

“I was warned,” Cally continued as though she had not heard her, “that exposure to your people would be harmful to my nature.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Jenna, affronted by the accusation.

“This is not how the Auronar behave!”

“It’s not how we behave either. Avon and I...” She stopped herself. Some things were better left unsaid. “Let’s just say we were under the influence of the planet.”

“I cannot imagine Avon being affected as we were,” Cally said softly. “He is very controlled, isn’t he?”

Jenna sighed. If only she knew. “For a while, he wasn’t.”

“That must have grieved him.”

Grieved was not the word Jenna would have used. If so, he had hid it well beneath insults and simmering rage. Once he had lost that, he had been almost human. Almost.

“Blake isn’t avoiding you,” she said instead. “We’ve all been under strain, Cally.”

“Perhaps.” She let the thought lie. “But if I have no place here, I must leave.”

“Talk to him first.”

“What good will that do if he cannot bear to talk to me?”

With that, Cally turned unhappily and headed away. Typical Blake, Jenna thought. Either he was blind to Cally’s situation or was choosing to pretend nothing had happened. This approach, far from making matters better, was only driving her away. Well, she thought to herself, if he refused to acknowledge her torment, then she would have to drag his head out of the sand and give him a nudge in the right direction before they lost her for good.

Continuing on towards the flight deck, she paused at the head of the stairs, not immediately recognising the figure bent over the console with his back to her. The soft sheen of dark green velvet and silver trim was not the usual choice for anyone on the ship and for a moment Jenna wondered if this was the elusive Enki. It was only when Avon raised his head that she realised their conversation would be happening sooner rather than later.

Leaving seemed preferable. Too late, for Avon glanced in her direction, his gaze washing over her dismissively. Very well, Jenna thought, two can play at that game.

She went ignored him and went straight to the helm to check the scanners. A course had been laid for a planet in Sector Eleven. The name of the planet was unfamiliar and again her assumption was that it was the homeworld of their guest. With their current speed at Standard by Three, the remaining journey time was given as seventy-six hours. Too long, she thought, to travel to a place in the middle of nowhere with tensions running this high.

“Zen,” she said, “increase speed to Standard by Ten.”

“Confirmed,” Zen replied.

“That might be unwise,” Avon remarked without looking up.

“Why?”

He straightened and made a show of adjusting the setting on the tool he was using. He was taking his time and making her wait, the first act in their power struggle to determine strengths and weaknesses. 

“The energy banks have not fully recharged,” he said finally. “There is also a major fault in the main circuitry, along with other damage caused by our escape from Jocasta.”

“So?” she challenged him. “Let the auto-repair see to it.”

“At Standard by Ten, we will get there before it does. We have only the alien’s assertion that our reception will not be hostile. I would prefer that we have full power when arrive.”

His reasoning was sound. Jenna reluctantly had Zen decrease speed to its former setting. Avon watched her with a faint smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. It was calculated to annoy. It was working.

“Something you find amusing?” she said to him.

“I was wondering,” he said, slowly closing the ground between until he was standing next to her, “why you were in such a hurry to get there. Do you have somewhere else to be?”

“Do you think you have a monopoly on wanting to leave the _Liberator_?”

“No. I have observed, however, that whenever there is a crisis on this ship, someone can usually be relied upon to start looking for sympathy. I had not expected it to be you.”

“Just as well I’m not,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t find it from you.”

The grin widened, flashing teeth. “That’s right.”

She sighed. Business as usual, with Avon his rude, irascible self. There was a strange sort of comfort in that. This Avon she knew how to handle. 

“You’ve recovered then?” she said.

“Apparently.” He clasped his hands loosely behind his back. He was close, Jenna noted, but keeping his distance. “I don’t remember much of what happened. Vila tells me I was ‘raving’.”

Jenna smiled to herself. It seemed to be Vila’s word of choice. “To put it mildly. You called down Sentinel on us.”

“It’s a pity it was destroyed. I should have liked to study it. A water-based computer system would seem improbable.”

“Impossible.”

“Someone made it possible. The question is: how?”

“I don’t care,” she replied. “It’s gone.”

“And the people with it.”

He ordered Zen to call up the last recorded image of Jocasta. The heavy cloud of the atmosphere had vanished. What was revealed was an ice planet, its smooth surface sparkling with the reflected rays of a distant star.

“What happened?” Jenna asked.

“The sky fell in on them,” Avon replied with no trace of irony. “Without Sentinel to regulate the force field, the atmosphere collapsed. An instantaneous freeze. Anyone on Jocasta is dead.”

A terrible fate, she thought. Devyn would never know the freedom he craved.

“I’m sorry for them,” she said.

“I am not,” Avon said.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” 

She skirted the console and went to check on the readouts for the energy banks. As Avon had said, levels were still building. When she looked up, she found he had followed her. He was shadowing her for a reason, she decided.

“What now?” she demanded.

“As I said, my memory is incomplete.” He was watching her closely, trying to gauge her reaction. She knew what was coming. “I seem to recall a moment where _you_ kissed me.”

It was hard to say whether it was the slight scowl that played across his features or the suggestion it had been at her instigation which irritated her the most. 

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“Yes, well, it was hardly memorable.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time.”

He inclined his head slightly. “I had no objection to the activity. It was the company.”

He was expecting a slap across the face. He had pushed and needled and finally gone too far. Because of that, she was not going to give him the satisfaction. It would be too easy, she thought. For that, she was going to make him suffer.

“The feeling’s mutual,” she returned. “I like my partners to be breathing.”

“With the bar set that low, disappointment must be rare.”

“I ended up with you, didn’t I?”

“Let’s make sure _it_ doesn’t happen again.”

She was struck by the sudden impression that he really had no memory of what ‘it’ might have been. He had been trying to provoke a reaction to find out what he wanted to know instead of asking directly. 

“You really don’t remember, do you?” she said to him.

This time his hesitation was less calculated, more born of uncertainty. “Then enlighten me. Did we...?”

“Yes, Avon, we did. All the way.” He gritted his teeth. Having fun at his expense was going to be enjoyable. Serves him right, she thought. “You wanted to keep stopping, but I made us go on.”

The scowl deepened. “That was considerate of you.”

“It was worth it, in the end.”

“ _‘Worth it?’_ ” His eyes narrowed. “That sounds inadequate somehow.”

“I said I would get you home. What more do you want?”

“We are talking about―”

“Climbing the mountain, yes.”

“Ah.” His relief was palpable.

“As for anything else,” said she, turning to go, “you’ll have to wait for your memory to return.”

“Nothing happened,” he stated. “If it had, we would be having a different conversation.”

“Not necessarily. Like you, I’m not negotiable either.”

“Or second best?”

It stopped her. Just as she had feared. “You do remember.”

He shrugged lightly. “Fragments. I remember you speaking of certain needs.”

She faced him, hands on hips. “That was Sentinel talking.”

He was staring hard at her. “It is a valid concern.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Yes, it is. As long as I choose to be here, I would prefer this ship be piloted by someone capable. If you leave, who will take your place? Gan? Vila? The _Liberator_ will not last a week.”

“So it’s a practical consideration?”

“You have value. As do I.”

“No one is indispensable, Avon.”

“Then why didn’t you leave me on Jocasta?”

“I almost did.”

He had the gall to find it amusing. The smirk reached his eyes, creasing the lines around them into tiny furrows. “No, you didn’t. If I believed that, I would never have given you the last of the water.”

He was probing again, she decided, although the source of his interest this time was less clear. She chose her words with care.

“Then you don’t know me at all.” 

“I know how you act, Jenna,” Avon went on. “You are predictable. You keep your word. You would not leave Blake behind. You would not leave me behind.”

“You aren’t Blake.”

“That’s right, I’m not. I would dead now if I was trusting to sentiment to get me back to the ship.”

And there it was, Jenna thought. With one word, he had given himself away. Sentiment, a thing to be sneered at, and apparently feared. What he was really trying to discover, she decided, was how much of himself had he given away, how much had he revealed. In that light, his sudden change of clothing began to make sense. Silver bands, running around his arms and down his chest, like the bars of a cage. He had retreated and locked himself away.

It was a difficult situation, if she was reading him correctly. Did she tell him and put an end to his speculation? Or, as he would have done, keep it to be used as future ammunition? It would be a hold to have over him. Relations would only continue to sour until he would tolerate it no longer. Then what? Leave. Or remove the problem at its core?

Neither seemed particularly appealing. Nor did pandering to his paranoia. The power those two letters etched on his forearm had was immense. Unwittingly, she had fed his fears by refusing to say what exactly had happened between them. 

In the end, the choice was easy. Pragmatism over sentiment and no ties for either of them.

“You’re right, Avon,” she said, feigning as much disinterest as she could. “You are good at what you do. This ship needs someone with your skills. If not for that consideration, I would have left you behind. You were slowing me down.”

“As I thought.” He drew away. The lines had been thrown back in place and remained much as they had ever been. It suited them both, Jenna decided. Safer that way. “As for your problem,” he said, “do something about it.”

“I don’t need your permission. In any case, I agree with Blake. It leads to complications.”

“You aren’t the only person on this ship.”

Right on cue, Vila appeared talking loudly with Gan from the corridor. Avon had timed that one to perfection, she thought.

“There they are,” said Vila, hurrying down the steps when he saw them. “I said they’d be all right. Didn’t I say that?”

“I’m sure you did,” said Gan with a grin. “You said a lot of things.”

“Well, it’s good to have you both back anyway.” A smile for Jenna, a faltering glance at Avon. “Someone’s been having a rummage in the wardrobe, I see.” He looked him up and down. “Green? Doesn’t suit you. Makes you look ill.”

If he did, Jenna thought, it was less the fault of the colour and more to do with his weight loss. The soft folds currently zigzagging across his back would fill out in time for a better fit. Until then, it was only serving to emphasise how thin he was.

“At least I picked one colour,” Avon retorted, eyeing him with disdain.

Vila tugged down his patchwork tunic self-consciously and tried to act unconcerned. “Well, you certainly smell better. I haven’t smelled anything as bad as that since the teleport burned out.”

“That was the scent of the ocean, Vila,” said Gan, clapping him on the back. “A good clean smell. Takes me back, that does. I haven’t seen an ocean in... well, I don’t know how long.”

“I’m still waiting to hear what it was like down there,” said Vila. “It’s not the view I’m interested in. Go on, tell me, were there lots of pretty girls?”

“They were all old, Vila,” said Jenna.

“What, all of them?”

“They were dying. The planet was killing them by making them age rapidly. Probably why they couldn’t have children.”

“Devyn being the exception as he was not conceived on Jocasta,” said Avon.

“What do you think happened to his mother?” Jenna mused. “Merek never said.”

“If not the planet, then perhaps Merek himself was responsible for her death. Devyn found that ship, but he might not have been the first.”

“I thought everyone was meant to be happy down there.” Vila pulled a face. “I think I’ll give Jocasta a miss, after all.”

“You wouldn’t risk it, not even for a pretty girl?” said Gan with a genial grin.

“Well, I’d have to think about it,” he replied with a shrug. “It depends if they’ve got nice legs.”

“As I said,” Avon muttered under his breath, directing his attention back to Jenna, “not just you.”

“I’ll speak to him,” she said. “Where is Blake?”

Neither Vila or Gan could answer that with any confidence. She finally found him in the recreation room, stretched out on one of the couches, shirt unbuttoned, shoes off, fast asleep. Not wanting to wake him, she had turned to go, only to hear the rustle of fabric and the creak of leather before a slow, sleepy voice called her name. 

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” she said with a gentle smile.

Blake rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on her. “You didn’t.”

He lied poorly. He looked grey. “Rough night?”

He gave a low grunt and pushed himself up. “It took us nine hours to get Avon to stay under. He keep waking up and ripping out his IV. There was blood everywhere at one point.” He inspected his cuff, where rust-coloured smears were visible, ending just short of his elbow. “The computers estimated he was metabolising the drugs in a fraction of the normal time. At the beginning, he was coming round every ten minutes. Gan and I took it in turns to stay with him.”

“Is that why you locked Cally out?”

He looked surprised. “Is that what she said?” He sighed when Jenna nodded. “I wasn’t so much locking her out as locking him _in_. Avon was agitated, unpredictably so at times. We all picked up a few more cuts and bruises during the night. The fewer people he had around him, the better.”

Exactly as she had thought. Even so, she left it a moment before she replied. “Cally also said you were avoiding her.”

“What? No, not at all.”

Once again, the charge seemed to come as a shock. Or perhaps not, Jenna reflected. His tone of voice lacked conviction.

“Yes, you have,” she said, defying him to deny it.

The struggle with his conscience was brief. “Well, yes, maybe I have. Given what happened―”

“Oh?”

“ _Nothing_ happened,” he said with emphasis.

“Does Cally know that? I got the impression she thinks something did. If I were her, I’d want to know. You need to tell her, Blake.”

“Tell her what?” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “How can I tell her that nothing happened?”

“She would appreciate the reassurance. She thinks it’s her fault.”

“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I swore this would never happen to me again, not after the Federation!” He scrubbed at his chin, trying to put his feelings into words. “I keep asking myself what would have happened if we hadn’t met Enki. Truth is, Jenna, we would never have escaped Jocasta without his help. And I almost lost that. I lost... _control_. I had my hands around his throat.” He mimed the gesture, his expression torn as he did so. “I wanted to kill him. If I had, I’d have damned us all.”

He sighed again, heavier than before. The episode was weighing on his conscience.

“Is that why you sat up all night with Avon?”

His hesitation was telling. “I couldn’t leave him.”

“They left you.”

“I wasn’t as bad as Avon. If anything had happened to either of you, I would have never forgiven myself.”

He stared at his hands, lost in thought. Jenna gave him a moment before speaking again.

“Shouldn’t you be telling Cally this? She needs to know.”

He gave a considered nod. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, you’re right, as always.”

She smiled. “I thought that was Avon’s particular talent.”

“Only some of the time.” 

He returned her smile. He was close enough to reach out and rub her arm encouragingly. His hand lingered there longer than was necessary. She looked deep into his eyes, seeing there everything he wanted to say. If there was ever to be a time, this was it. And then the moment passed, gone forever.

“You know, Jenna,” he said, getting to his feet, “we’ve been on the run now for a long time without a break.”

“I was thinking the same thing. Gan was talking about seeing an ocean and Vila...” She gave him a lop-sided grin. “Well, you know Vila.”

He nodded in grim agreement. “It’s not good for morale. We may be free of the Federation, but how free are we, if we are never able to leave the _Liberator_? A cage with gilded bars is still a cage, after all.” It had the sound of a speech he had prepared in advance, Jenna thought. “Do you know anywhere that would take us?” he asked.

“There’s a few places.”

“Are they safe for us?”

“We aren’t the first people to be wanted by the Federation,” she said, turning to go. Before she did, there was something he needed to hear. “Blake? A cage is only a cage if you have no choice. The _Liberator_ isn’t Jocasta and Zen isn’t Sentinel. Some of us choose to be here.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Believe me,” she said, smiling at him, “I have never been so glad to be back.”

**The End**


End file.
